MESSES,  EGBERTS  BEOTHEES'  PUBLICATIONS, 

THE    RISING    FAITH.     By   Rev.   C.   A.   BARTOL, 
D.D.     One  volume,  i6mo.    Cloth.     Price  $2.00. 

From  the  Boston  Advertiser. 

The  book  in  its  drift  is  a  sequel  to  the  "Radical  Problems"  published  last 
year;  though  it  deals  less  with  the  mysteries  of  faith  and  opinion  about  which 
thinkers  and  teachers,  earnest  and  thoughtful  like  himself,  differ  widely.  .  .  .  With 
a  dash  of  his  pen  he  strikes  at  forms  of  belief  and  worship  which  to  him  are  nothing, 
or  worse  than  nothing,  but  to  many  millions  of  the  human  race  have  been  a  savor 
of  life  unto  life,  and  have  opened  the  way  of  spiritual  illumination,  the  reality  of 
which  no  man  living  has  the  right  to  question.  But  after  all,  the  reader,  whatever 
his  religious  experience  may  Rave  been,  if  he  reads  to  the  end,  will  find  the  reli 
gious  philosophy  of  Dr.  Bartol  resting  on  the  deep  and  unchangeable  foundations 
of  faith  in  God,  —  the  foundation  on  which  all  creeds  and  all  systems  must  be 
built  to  be  eternal. 

From,  the  Liberal  Christian. 

His  book  may  not  define  the  creed  of  the  future,  but  it  does  better.  It  inspires 
us  with  "the  rising  faith."  What  a  glorious  faith  it  is!  Faith  in  God,  in  man, 
in  immortality.  Faith  in  reason,  in  spirit,  in  character.  Faith  in  the  past,  in 
the  present,  in  the  future.  Faith  in  law,  in  order,  in  beneficence.  Faith  in  hu 
man  nature,  not  as  a  finality,  but  as  "a  becoming."  Faith  in  man's  environment 
as  admirably  adapted  to  develop  him  into  "  the  stature  of  a  man  which  is  that  of 
the  angel."  Faith  in  liberty,  but  not  in  license.  Faith  in  the  pure  marriage  of 
coequal  hearts  and  minds.  Faith  in  forbearance  and  self-sacrifice  as  better  than 
divorce-made-easy  to  solve  the  social  riddle  of  the  time.  Faith  in  educated  labor 
as  the  best  solution  of  the  problem  of  labor.  These  are  a  few  of  the  "  notes"  of 
"The  Rising  Faith"  which  Dr.  Bartol  blends  in  his  wonderful  Fantasia. 

Front  the  Christian  Leader. 

It  is  the  faith  that  Mr.  Bartol  has  attained  to  as  the  result  of  his  studies, 
observations,  reflections  for  more  than  sixty  years,  following  the  apostolic  direc 
tion  to  try  all  things  and  hold  fast  that  which  is  good.  And  certainly  a  great  part 
of  what  he  with  his  constant  trying  has  held  fast  to  will  be  called  good  by  the 
large  majority  of  those  who  are  esteemed  right-minded  and  sound-thinking  men. 
.  .  .  But  above  all  things,  the  writer  is  true  to  his  own  convictions.  These  he  states 
positively,  clearly,  unhesitatingly,  but  with  all  gentleness. 

He  is  certainly  a  Liberal  Thinker,  but  in  sweetness,  candor,  fair-mindedness, 
love  of  his  fellow-men,  patience  with  their  errors  and  infirmities,  shrewd  observa 
tion  of  their  weaknesses,  purity  and  spirituality,  he  should  be  taken  as  an  example 
by  all  the  Liberal  Thinkers  of  our  day.  The  book  has  a  long  life  before  it,  if  for 
nothing  else  but  its  literary  excellencies.  ...  It  will  be  cordially  welcomed  by  all 
tha  best  intellects  of  our  day  as  a  valuable  contribution  to  human  thought,  and  be 
the  text  of  many  an  essay  for  a  long  time  to  come. 

Sold  everywhere.  Mailed,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of  the  price,  by  the 
Publishers, 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


MESSRS,   EGBERTS   BROTHERS'  PUBLICATIONS. 

RADICAL  ^PROBLEMS.     By  Rev.  C.  A.  BABTOL, 
D.D.    One'volume,  16mo.    Cloth.    Price  $2. 

CONTENTS.  —  Open  Questions;  Individualism;  Transcendentalism; 
Radicalism;  Theism;  Naturalism;  Materialism;  Spiritualism;  Faith; 
.jaw;  Origin;  Correlation;  Character;  Genius:  Father  Taylor;  Expe 
rience;  Hope;  Ideality. 

From  the  Liberal  Christian. 

"What  a  wonderful,  wonderful  book  is  the  "  Radical  Problems."  We  ar« 
not  a  third  through  it  yet,  and  Heaven  only  knows  where  and  how  we  shall 
find  ourselves  at  the  end  of  the  journey.  Already  are  we  so  shocked, 
stunned,  bewildered,  edified,  delighted,  —  in  short,  thorougnly,  thoroughly 
bewitched,  —  that  we  have  no  words  to  express  ourselves.  .  .  .  That  this 
book  has  a  long  life  before  it  who  can  doubt,  or  that  it  will  cause  a  grand 
commotion  in  the  theological  world?  It  will  be  impetuously  attacked  and 
vehemently  defended,  but  will  survive  alike  the  onslaught  of  its  assailants 
and  the  intemperate  zeal  of  its  defenders ;  and  will  be  the  fruitful  source 
of  many  a  brilliant  essay  and  inspiring  discourse  and  stimulating  and 
Suggestive  club-talk,  long,  long  after  its  gentle  and  gifted  author  has  left 
us  to  receive  a  most  cordial  welcome  by  his  brother  thinkers  in  brighter 
spheres. 

From  the  Commonwealth. 

Spirituality,  purity,  gentleness,  love,  child-like  simplicity,  bless  and 
sanctify  him;  but  he  is  spirited  as  well  as  spiritual.  In  his  gentleness 
there  is  a  quick  vivacity,  and  he  sometimes  exhibits  a  keen  incisivenesa 
as  of  whetted  steel.  His  aim  is  not  so  much  to  solve  as  to  suggest.  He  is 
no  dogmatist,  nor  is  he  an  expositor  or  judge.  He  finds  open  questions 
and  delights  to  leave  them  open  questions  still.  Meantime  he  looks  iut  j 
them  with  the  eyes  of  his  inmost  soul,  discerns  much,  throws  out  a  p'o- 
fusion  of  glancing  and  irradiating  suggestions  that  open  the  quest' ons 
farther  instead  of  closing  them,  then  retires  to  look  elsewhere.  .  .  .  This 
man  carries  eternal  summer  in  the  eyes,  and  sees  beds  of  violets  in  snow 
banks.  His  own  climate  is  his  world,  and  he  can  make  no  excursions  out 
of  it.  A  pleasant  world  it  is,  with  no  deserts,  jungles,  reeking  bogs,  foul, 
ravening  creatures,  and  poles  heaped  with  ice.  As  some  will  see  only  with 
the  physical  eye,  so  he  with  the  spiritual  only. 

From  the  Globe. 

It  contains  seventeen  chapters,  honestly  representing  the  individual 
spiritual  experience  of  the  author,  and  at  the  same  time  indicating  some 
of  the  intellectual  tendencies  of  the  time.  It  is  "  radical,"  not  in  the  usual 
sense  of  the  word,  but  in  its  true  sense,  that  of  attempting  to  pierce  to  the 
roots  of  things.  Many  of  the  opinions  and  ideas  expressed  in  the  book  may 
be  repudiated  by  the  conservative  reader,  but  its  spirit  and  aim  cannot 
fail  to  charm  and  invigorate  him.  Dr.  Bartol,  indeed,  is  one  of  those  men 
who  have  religious  genius  as  well  as  religious  faith.  .  .  .  The  book  is  a 
protest  against  popular  theology,  made  from  what  the  writer  considers 
the  standpoint  of  true  and  pure  religion.  We  have  considered  it  from  a 
literary  point  of  view,  and.  thus  considered,  its  wealth  of  thought  and 
Imaginative  illustration  entitle  it  to  a  high  rank  among  the  publication* 
»f  the  year. 

Sold  everywhere.    Mailed,  postpaid,  by  the  Publisher^ 

ROBERTS  BROTHERS,  Bosioa. 


PRINCIPLES    AND    PORTRAITS. 


PRINCIPLES 


AND 


PORTRAITS. 


BY  C.  A.  BARTOL, 

AUTHOR  OF  "RADICAL  PROBLEMS"  AND  "THE  RISING  FAITH." 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS  BROTHERS. 
1880. 


Copyright,  1880, 
BY  ROBERTS  BROTHERS. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS': 
JOHN  WILSON  &  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I.  — PRINCIPLES. 

PAQK 

I.     DEFINITION 3 

II.  EDUCATION 32 

III!  DEITY 66 

IV.  SCIENCE 108 

V.  ART 134 

VI.  LOVE 157 

VII.  LIFE 178 

VIII.  BUSINESS 202 

IX.  BEASTS 228 

X.  POLITICS 263 

XI.  PLAY  292 


PART    II.  — PORTRAITS. 

I.     THE  PERSONALITY  OF  SHAKSPEARE      .     .     .  315 

II.     CHANNING,  THE  PREACHER 342 

III.  BUSHNELL,    THE    THEOLOGIAN 366 

IV.  THE  GENIUS  OF  WEISS 386 

V.     GARRISON,  THE  REFORMER 413 

VI.    HUNT,  THE  ARTIST 435 

272901 


PAET   I. 
PRINCIPLES. 


PAKT    I. 
PRINCIPLES. 


I. 

DEFINITION. 

IN  a  scientific  age,  requiring  that  ever}7  thing  shall  be 
clearly  observed,  conceived,  and  described,  it  con 
cerns  us  not  to  overlook  what  no  sphere  of  definition 
can  include.  Exact  discovery,  like  the  projection  of  a 
map  or  chart  and  the  figures  in  a  picture,  needs  its  un 
defined  background.  The  atoms  that  combine  in  defi 
nite  proportions,  the  imponderables  of  light  and  heat, 
—  which  Goethe  said  change  bleak  and  brown  winter 
to  the  green  and  blooming  landscape,  —  proceed  from 
and  refer  to  somewhat  immense.  We  can  define  a 
proposition,  but  not  that  germinal  ocean  of  life  from 
which  Agassiz  thought  come  all  animal  and  vegetable 
forms.  Definition  is  limitation  within  measures  of 
weight,  space,  and  time ;  but  how  much  cannot  be 
put  in  pound  or  notched  on  any  scale !  Definition  is 
discrimination ;  but  are  we  not  able  to  contemplate  the 
whole?  Yes,  if  universe  be  a  lawful  word. 

We  belong  to  one  or  another  school  of  philosophy 
according  to  our  tendency  to  emphasize  the  unity  or 


4  PRINCIPLES. 

diversity  of  things.  Plato,  Spinoza,  Leibnitz,  Hegel, 
care  for  discrimination,  but  they  aim  to  trace  the  uni 
versal  thread  on  which  every  bead  or  boulder  is  strung. 
Aristotle,  Francis  Bacon,  Locke,  Comte,  and  all  the 
modern  experimentalists  aim  to  divide  and  distinguish 
the  whole  into  elements  and  parts.  Neither  of  these 
intellectual  dispositions  can  dispense  with  the  other. 
If  the  last  be  extreme,  we  have  the  materialist ;  and 
the  mystic  when  the  first  prevails.  But  the  unobser 
vant  fail  alike  of  special  information  and  of  communion 
with  the  One  in  all.  To  the  ignorant  and  moon-eyed 
the  world  is  but  a  bright  blur :  they  dwell  in  the  vague 
and  void.  To  the  truculent  dissector  and  exclusive 
analyst  the  world  is  a  series  of  dots  or  lines  under  his 
lens  or  heap  of  ashes  from  his  retort.  The  doctrine  of 
evolution  is  an  attempt  at  justice  at  once  to  matter  and 
mind ;  and  the  evolutionist  is  an  idealist  in  seeking 
connection  and  consequence  eve^where.  Darwin  and 
Spencer  —  one  unfolding  the  physiological,  the  other 
the  social  side  of  the  same  theory  —  are  no  teachers  of 
chance  and  a  mindless  origin,  but  contributors  to  a 
worship  wider  than  can  be  held  in  the  church- walls,  as 
are  those  French  naturalists  who  have  shown  that  hu 
man  society  only  repeats  and  furthers  the  economy, 
justice,  and  orderly  government  of  insects  even  lower 
down  than  the  ants  and  the  bees.  "In  my  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions ;  "  and  it  is  sublime  to  see 
in  what  huts  and  chambers  of  minute  cells  begins  the 
housekeeping  which  legions  of  angels  in  the  Master's 
thought  carry  out.  It  is  the  prime  delight  of  reverent 
study  to  trace  analogies  and  variations  of  one  tune 
throughout  the  vegetable  and  animal  sphere.  The 


DEFINITION.  5 

three  green  needles  in  one  sheaf  and  five  in  another 
of  two  species  of  pine-tree,  the  edging  of  the  leaf  in 
the  red  oak  and  rounding  of  it  in  the  white  oak,  —  as 
though  the  same  scissors  took  pleasure  in  varying  the 
pattern  in  a  similar  cloth,  —  are  parallel  on  a  lower 
plane  with  the  shifting  and  turning  of  one  melody  in  a 
symphony  of  Beethoven,  and  intended  for  like  satisfac 
tion.  The  pismire,  hauling  a  worm  ten  times  as  big  or 
bit  of  gravel  ten  times  as  heavy  as  itself  to  construct  and 
provision  its  sandy  tenement,  has  a  strange  similarity 
with  the  hunter  taking  home  his  heavy  game  from  the 
desert  or  jungle  and  the  captain  dragging  a  ship  with  his 
little  tug.  What  a  mirror  of  humanity  in  the  airs  of  the 
peacock,  cunning  of  the  opossum,  turtle,  and  fox,  moth 
erly  cluck  of  the  hen  and  proud  rooster's  strut,  cruel  hug 
of  the  bear  and  saving  goodness  of  the  Newfoundland 
and  Great  St.  Bernard  dog !  We  are  implicated  with 
the  beasts,  be  we  their  descendants  or  not.  Likeness 
or  difference,  the  definable  and  indistinguishable,  these 
are  the  poles  of  the  world ;  men  and  nations  are  clas 
sifiable  as  they  incline  to  one  or  the  other.  The  Ger 
man  genius,  for  example,  would  discover  the  centre 
all  comes  from  or  pivot  on  which  all  turns,  and  the 
French  would  find  and  formulate  the  facts.  The  vast 
and  misty  implications  of  the  German  tongue  tell  of 
the  Black  Forest  and  mountain  mirage ;  the  French 
language  is  clear  and  sunny  as  their  climate  and  soil. 
It  is  the  dialect  of  narrative,  conversation,  description, 
and  wit ;  and  it  is  impossible,  when  a  double  entendre 
is  not  intended,  to  mistake  what  a  Frenchman  means 
to  say.  The  speech  he  uses  may  be  lied  in,  but  is  too 
precise  itself  to  He  ;  and  Brown-Se'quard  found  English 


6 


PRINCIPLES. 


a  looser  and  easier  language  for  a  lecture  than  his  ver 
nacular.  The  German  mind  is  a  quarry ;  the  French,  a 
foundry.  The  French  drops  its  bucket  after  the  truth, 
but  does  not  roil  the  well ;  the  German  digs  deeper, 
that  the  water  may  not  fail,  or  may  gush  through 
an  artesian  spring.  The  questions  Where  from  and 
Where  to  the  Frenchman  postpones  to  that  of  Where, 
—  getting  the  most  out  of  the  present,  while  the 
German  would  decide  if  there  be  for  us  a  future  or 
not. 

Both  scales,  finite  and  infinite,  are  in  every  soul ;  the 
point  to  consider  is  how  the  balance  inclines.  The 
philosophy  to  which  only  the  finite  exists  shuts  out 
God  and  heaven,  and  duty  save  as  a  calculation  of 
profit  and  loss.  We,  in  its  view,  are  booked  for  a 
journey,  we  have  taken  a  berth,  we  are  at  an  inn,  but 
soon  to  leave  for  ever  carriage  and  bed  and  board.  The 
relation  of  sex  for  a  limited  term  loses  in  the  light  of 
utility  its  charm ;  and  business  becomes  a  game  of 
sharpers,  if  conscience  be  but  convenience  and  no 
reckoning  exist  beyond  the  ledger  in  the  safe. 

But  my  thesis  is  that  there  is  no  strict  definition  pos 
sible  of  the  meanest  thing.  A  railway  sleeper  runs 
farther  than  across  the  track,  —  even  to  the  timber, 
tree,  acorn,  or  pine-cone,  earth,  water,  air,  sun,  and  the 
immemorial  nebula  which  has  been  successively  the  tomb 
of  an  old  world  and  cradle  of  a  new  one,  till  imagina 
tion  staggers  on  the  trail.  The  iron  rail  dates  from  the 
bowels  of  the  earth  and  elements  preceding  the  fiery 
throes  which  shot  up  in  liquid  streams  the  metallic 
mines  and  veins.  The  ant-hill  reared  over  night,  which 
the  thundering  train  shakes  down  in  the  morning,  was 


DEFINITION.  I 

provided  for  in  a  balloon  of  fire-mist  bigger  than  the 
solar  system.  The  very  foot,  well  shod,  which  I  plant 
on  the  gravel,  is  a  dance  of  shifting  atoms  to  andlfrom 
the  ends  of  the  earth.  There  is  somewhat  transcendent 
in  the  origin  and  orbit  of  every  particle,  and  a  conscious 
infinity  in  the  soul  they  serve. 

"  Imperial  Caesar,  dead  and  turned  to  clay," 

is  a  clownish  conceit.  I  and  my  neighbor  survey  our 
adjoining  fields  and  drive  iron  bolts  for  bounds,  but  we 
cannot  measure  ourselves.  We  know  not  when  we  be 
gan.  Nobody  has  grown  wiser  than  David,  who  only 
knew  he  was  "  curiously  wrought  in  the  lowest  parts  of 
the  earth."  The  elements  flew  to  clothe  in  me  what 
they  did  not  make.  Neither  can  we  tell  how  much  we 
occupy  of  space.  My  body  is  of  a  certain  size,  but  not 
my  mind.  I  am  where  it  is, — in  the  sky,  primeval 
chaos,  or  paradise.  Its  travelling  has  no  chart.  It 
concentrates  itself  through  a  microscope  on  a  dot  a 
thousand  times  too  small  for  the  naked  e^ye,  and  seizes 
with  its  speculation  a  protoplasm  a  thousandth  part  of 
the  dot,  or  expands  to  the  size  of  Sirius  the  spheres 
which  are  but  ethereal  motes.  It  gathers  through  a 
hole  two-thousandths  of  an  inch  wide  the  light  of  the 
planet  Mars.  An  attendant  at  church  said,  "  I  took  in 
the  service  with  the  millionth  part  of  my  mind."  An 
idea  or  feeling  has  indeterminable  scope.  We  never  went 
round  our  own  heart,  gauged  a  sentiment,  or  expended 
it  in  any  ebb  or  expression  of  word  or  deed.  What  is 
the  last  time  your  trained  terrier  would  run  for  the  ball 
you  throw?  He  would  run  till  he  dropped.  Where 
will  your  ardor  halt?  You  may  make  a  study  of  your 


8  PRINCIPLES. 

mate  and  offspring,  as  does  Mr.  Darwin  of  his  infants  ; 
but  there  is  in  them  something  you  are  aware  of,  but 
can  Neither  observe  nor  describe.  The  woman  dear  to 
you  is  a  piece  of  flesh,  —  no  doubt  belongs  to  the  ani 
mal  kingdom  in  the  order  of  mammals.  She  is  fitted 
to  reproduce  and  nurse  her  like.  But  with  her  fleshly 
organism  she  includes  something  else, — a  personality 
which  forbids  her  being  made  an  instrument  or  tool. 
She  is  abused  when  she  is  tyrannized  over,  and  dies  to 
your  thought  and  heart  when  she  is  defined.  Still  less 
can  we  define  God.  Say,  boldly,  he  cannot  define,  for 
he  cannot  measure,  himself.  Religious  people  are 
startled  by  the  idea  that  he  is  not  conscious  of  himself. 
But  he  were  self-measured  and  finite,  not  infinite,  did 
even  any  self-consciousness  fully  take  his  own  being  in. 
If  he  be  nowise  forgetful  of  himself,  he  would  be  devoid 
of  the  finest  virtue  which  his  creatures  display.  He  is 
conscious  of  and  in  his  offspring  and  work  rather  than 
in  and  of  himself;  and  we  are  the  process  of  his  mind 
as  well  as  fashion  of  his  hands.  He  is  from  everlast 
ing,  yet  he  were  blind  and  dumb  and  dead  but  for  what 
he  does  ;  and  should  he  rest  on  a  Sabbath  day,  or 
strike  work  for  a  moment,  he  would  commit  suicide  by 
ceasing  from  the  labor  which  is  his  play.  He  is  not 
abstract,  but  concrete,  and  rushes  for  ever  into  the  ac 
tion  which  is  his  only  speech.  He  is  good,  but  never 
stops  to  think  how  good  he  is  ;  and  for  his  own  glory, 
of  which  the  tradition  of  selfish  ages  says  he  is  jealous, 
he  cares  not  a  jot.  It  is  as  pure  a  fiction  when  we 
apply  arithmetic  to  him  and  call  him  threefold  as 
when  we  speak  of  a  quarter  of  the  world. 

This  doctrine  of  infinity  is  the  ground  of  liberty,  or 


DEFINITION.  9 

unlimited  room  to  put  forth  our  powers.  The  reason 
a  generous  soul  will  not  trespass  is  because  it  is  not  re 
strained.  Titian,  the  Venetian  painter,  was  trained  in 
his  youth  to  treat  religious  subjects  only,  till  he  was 
pursued  by  the  ascetic  spectres  he  had  portrayed.  So 
when  Alphonse,  Duke  of  Ferrara,  engaged  his  pencil  at 
court,  Titian  said  to  him,  "  You  have  seen  nothing  but 
saints  and  church  tableaux  from  my  hand."  The  wise 
duke  referred  him  at  once  to  themes  of  his  own  taste 
and  inclination,  which  led  him  not  to  skeleton  figures 
and  monkish  gloom,  but  to  all  that  is  alive  and  happy 
in  this  earthly  scene.  Before  long,  however,  Titian 
himself  proposed  to  paint  a  Christ.  "  I  thought,"  said 
the  Duke,  "  such  was  not  the  subject  you  would  prefer." 
"  True,  it  was  not,"  answered  the  master,  "when  I  was 
forced  to  it ;  but  since  you  give  me  my  libert}"  I  am 
eager  to  use  it  well,  and  henceforth  I  promise  that 
the  churches  and  convents  shall  have  as  much  from  me 
as  the  city  and  palace.  I  have  let  my  hand  run  too 
much  after  my  fancy,  and  I  should  be  vexed  not  to  re 
pent."  How  many  have  had  a  lifelong  disgust,  if  not 
actual  hatred,  for  the  Bible,  which  they  were  compelled, 
as  a  task  or  penalty,  in  their  childhood  to  read !  A 
pious  kinsman  of  my  own  confessed  with  shame  that  he 
preferred  Shakspeare  on  this  account,  and  went  secretly 
into  the  barn  to  read  the  pla}~s  all  by  himself.  Yet  the 
Scriptures  are  poems  too. 

But  it  is  objected  by  many  philosophers  of  mark,  that 
no  positive  idea  of  the  infinite  is  possible  to  the  human 
mind.  I  reply,  that  no  such  idea  of  the  finite  is  possi 
ble.  The  infinite  relation  of  ever}T  thing  determines  its 
finite  constitution.  Every  thing  has  an  immense  ances- 


10  PRINCIPLES. 

try  and  posterity,  and  every  person  is  coincident  if  not 
coextensive  with  God.  We  can  draw  no  circle,  how 
ever  large,  in  which  any  thing  can  be  contained.  Every 
thing  refers  to  something  else,  and  immeasurably  more, 
as  a  wave  to  the  sea.  Moreover,  every  thing  is  eter 
nally  derived,  and  the  history  of  a  particle  would  be  the 
history  of  the  universe.  In  what  mineral  formation,  vege 
table  soil,  animal  frame,  or  human  organism  and  sub 
stance  prior  to  all  these,  who  shall  tell  what  part  any 
particular  atom  has  played  ?  What  soul  or  spirit  has  it 
served,  what  emissary  has  it  been  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
or  what  journey  taken  longer  than  that  of  the  Wander 
ing  Jew?  How  it  perspires  from  a  pore,  exhales  in  a 
breath,  finds  room  in  a  sigh  with  a  million  of  its  mates, 
yet  is  more  solid  than  iron,  tougher  than  steel,  more 
palpable  to  a  finger  fine  enough  than  marble  or  granite, 
more  potential  than  catapult  or  battery,  while  with 
such  soft  impartiality  and  invincibility  it  nurses  the 
skin  of  a  man  or  a  plant,  constitutes  the  root  under 
ground  and  leaf  on  the  bough,  and  is  primordial  germ 
of  all  nature's  growth  !  We  cannot  catch  it,  more  than, 
as  Socrates  told  his  disciples,  they  could  overtake  his 
soul ;  and  what  this  trowel  or  chisel  of  an  atom  has  }Tet 
to  do,  what  prophet  shall  tell?  All  that  lives  will  fade, 
but  it  will  hold  over  and  survive.  If  the  world  be  burnt 
up,  this  asbestos  will  remain,  —  no  fire  it  does  not  work 
in,  or  ashes  it  is  not  raked  from.  *It  is  the  unmelted, 
safe,  and  unfailing  bond  of  value,  angel  of  an  endless 
errand,  and  messenger  that  punctually  arrives.  Being 
the  least  we  can  conceive,  it  yet  has,  through  the  largest 
we  can  imagine,  its  scope.  In  the  lightning  it  is  swifter 
than  an  arrow  and  heavier  than  a  cannon-ball.  In  every 


DEFINITION.  11 

form  of  giant  powder  fulminates  its  imperceptible  grain. 
It  is  the  force  in  the  frost,  whose  hoar  rime  on  an  au 
tumn  morning  turns  eve^  blade  of  grass  to  a  silver 
spear.  It  has  picked  for  ages  at  the  Atlantic  cliffs,  and 
promises  to  come  again.  *  It  cracks  the  granite  with 
slight,  repeated,  unnumbered  blows.  It  drills  the  hole, 
plants  the  charge,  and  blasts  the  rock  with  explosions 
too  noiseless  to  hear  and  too  far-reaching  to  compute. 
It  is  in  the  colors  of  whose  rates  of  diverse  velocity  only 
a  mathematical  term  is  the  gauge.  With  fine  penetra 
tion  to  paint,  it  has  a  strength  as  vast,  too,  as  the  gravi 
tation  that  heaves  the  orbs.  Its  artist-touch  is  resistless 
in  every  dot.  What  its  quality  is,  no  science  can  define. 
We  can  appreciate  it  only  as  we  stand  with  wonder  and 
worship  at  the  gates  of  an  inscrutable  Presence  to  which 
it  brings,  and  leaves  us  to  our  prayers. 

When  this  mysterious  property  becomes  a  living  mo 
nad  in  a  man,  he  becomes  immortal,  and,  like  Jesus, 
feels  commissioned  to  lay  it  down  and  take  it  again, 
being  conscious  of  power  to  rebuild  himself  from  his 
own  sepulchre.  It  is  the  distinction  of  every  great  soul 
to  be  aware  of  this  survival,  and  not  depend  on  any  ap 
parition  or  promise,  but  say,  "  I  am  the  rising  and  the 
life."  So  David  felt  he  could  not  be  left  in  the  tomb, 
although,  as  has  been  maintained,  there  was  no  revela 
tion  of  future  being  to  the  Jews.  Mohammed,  without 
the  Christian  camp,  and  Swedenborg,  an  aeronaut  above 
it,  had  on  this  point  no  doubt.  If  it  be  said  paradise  has 
as  much  credit  with  the  vulgar  as  with  the  wise,  the  an 
swer  is,  real  belief  in  immortality  as  an  article  can  arise 
only  from  consciousness  of  it  as  a  fact.  Many  desire 
and  perhaps  expect  continuance  of  their  carnal  existence 


12  PRINCIPLES. 

with  all  its  coarse  delights.  Even  churchmen  lay  on 
the  resurrection  of  the  body  supreme  stress,  as  the  de 
generate  Mohammedans  thought  of  beautiful  houris  for 
the  recompense  of  the  faithful,  as  for  them,  in  a  finer 
than  Indian  hunting-ground,  a  sort  of  heavenly  prey. 
But  the  Master's  sense  of  transcending  the  grave  and 
cradle  alike,  before  he  lay  down  in  either,  was  simply 
the  extraordinar}^  unfolding  in  him  of  the  spiritual  germ 
necessary  to  constitute  in  the  divine  image  our  human 
ity,  and  it  will  be  awakened  in  whoever  in  heaven  or 
earth  shares  the  growth  into  such  extraordinary  propor 
tions.  For  such  a  personality  no  definition  or  measure 
can  be  found. 

But  on  the  prejudice  or  presupposition  of  our  origin 
in  the  elements,  so  many  and  small,  has  been  based  a 
spurious  philosophy  of  accidental  being.  We  are  told,  if 
the  very  same  couples  had  not  met  through  a  long  pro- 
genital  line,  or  a  young  man  had  not  been  touched  with 
a  passing  fancy  for  a  young  woman,  if  a  chaise  had  not 
stopped  or  been  overturned,  or  a  ribbon  fluttered,  or  an 
accident  almost  fatal  had  not  happened  to  make  a  roman 
tic  rescue  in  season,  but  for  some  whim  or  pastime  to  oc 
casion  an  encounter  of  two  persons,  it  amuses  the  minute 
philosopher  to  assure  us,  we  should  never  have  seen  the 
light ;  no  Moses  or  Solomon  or  Son  of  Joseph  and  Mary 
would  ever  have  been  !  What  fine  sport  of  speculation 
thus  to  hang  human  society  on  hairs,  and  make  the 
originators  and  founders  of  states  and  churches,  the 
revolutionizers  of  empires  and  religions,  themselves 
the  creatures  of  a  trivial  accident  or  ephemeral  caprice, 
carrying  the  fortuity  of  atoms  to  higher  stages  than 
Lucretius  imagined,  and  deriving  the  moral  as  well  as 


DEFINITION.  13 

material  creation  from  a  throw  of  the  dice,  a  romping 
game,  a  running  from  the  track  or  rut  in  the  road ! 
But  we  should  sooner  think  the  mountain-ranges,  spinal 
columns  of  the  continental  globe,  to  be  pieces  of  luck, 
than  Caesar,  Dante,  or  Shakspeare.  Could  the  bed  of 
the  sea  not  have  been  scooped,  or  starry  firmament  not 
reared  ?  It  is  less  credible  that  Milton  or  Job  might 
have  been  passed  by !  World  or  no  world,  before  or 
after  Abraham,  Jesus  knew  that  God  could  not  dispense 
with  or  man  do  without  him,  and  so  he  was  bold  to  as 
sert  his  own  necessity.  In  the  prophet's  phrase,  space 
and  time  were  a  bed  too  short  and  narrow  for  him  to 
lie  down  and  stretch  himself  in.  For,  when  the  mind 
opens,  its  difference  from  matter  is  not  only  actual  but 
enormous.  No  life  out  of  death,  is  an  axiom  with  the 
scientist.  There  must  be  a  pre-existing  seed  or  egg. 
The  nebula  is  a  star-egg  with  the  star-plan  in  its  amor 
phous  mist,  as  the  acorn  holds  the  plan  of  the  oak. 
From  a  fine  tracery  comes  animation  of  plant  or  man. 
Yet,  how  inconceivably  close  together  are  the  living  and 
what  we  call  lifeless,  the  rapid  insect  generation  shows. 
Is  there  any  refuge  from  the  puzzle  of  these  same  buck 
ets,  full  or  empty  as  they  rise  and  sink,  but  that  all 
must  be  alive  somehow  and  that  there  is  no  death  ? 

Look  at  nature  with  science  as  a  lens.  The  rock 
swarms,  the  clod  dances,  the  mineral  is  but  the  vegeta 
ble  stepping  down  and  the  animal  an  ascending  plant, 
and  the  man  a  beast  extended  and  the  angel  a  devel 
oped  human  soul.  To  make  an  absolute  partition  of 
organic  and  inorganic,  and  deny  an  immaterial  principle, 
is  to  have  two  kinds  of  eternal  matter,  and  to  have 
naught  eternal  else.  What  a  lame  and  impotent  con- 


14  PRINCIPLES. 

elusion  for  the  intellect  by  which  it  is  made !  But  is 
it  not  a  self-contradiction  for  science  to  suspend  all  on 
hap-hazard  concurrence,  ruling  out  original  intent  or 
final  cause?  It  seems,  indeed,  that  we  see  and  hear 
and  speak  at  last ;  but  all  was  blind  and  dumb  and  dead 
at  first !  To  common-sense  what  is  this  but  the  bottom 
of  the  universe  dropping  out  ?  Despite  the  Scripture, 
He  that  formed  the  eye  and  planted  the  ear,  himself 
never  heard  or  saw  ! 

Note,  too,  this  confirmation  of  our  thought,  that  a 
mind  that  dwells  on  diversities  instead  of  correspond 
ences  is  uninventive.  By  seeing  likeness  in  difference, 
such  men  as  Newton,  Kepler,  Oken,  Goethe,  and 
Swedenborg  made  their  discoveries.  The  man  who  in 
public  life  is  taken  up  with  the  interests  of  his  village 
or  section,  and  not  with  the  commonweal,  will  be  an 
unpatriotic  local  politician  and  greenback  demagogue, 
not  a  true  statesman  or  financier.  He  will  be  not  a 
Webster  or  Sumner,  but  a  Calhoun  or  Hayne.  The 
ecclesiastic  or  theologian,  who  splits  hairs  of  dogma  and 
stickles  for  peculiarities  of  form,  who  rends  the  Church 
and  binds  not  up  its  wounds,  is  a  schismatic  and  heretic, 
undoing  the  atonement  the  Master  wrought.  The  con 
jugal  companion,  enslaved  to  his  own  view  and  temper 
ament,  keen  for  a  point  of  dispute,  and  stoutly  and 
stubbornly  self-committed  to  a  selfish  judgment  once 
expressed,  builds  but  that  house  divided  against  itself 
which  Jesus  says  must  fall.  The  legal  counsellor,  who 
has  made  a  microscope  of  Jiis  e}^e  to  magnify  out  of  all 
proportion  the  conflict  of  phrases  and  facts,  will  not 
broadly  survey  his  case  or  truly  serve  his  client,  how- " 
ever  he  may  wony  the  plaintiff  or  defendant  on  the 


DEFINITION.  15 

other  side.  Two  astute  lawyers  settling  the  exact  ter 
minology  of  a  deed  or  conve}Tance,  and  consuming  a 
month  of  time  on  the  mode,  while  the  substanee  of  the 
property  wastes,  and  only  the  fees  increase,  form  a 
spectacle  for  angels  and  men.  There  is  an  intellectual 
pleasure  in  discriminating ;  but,  as  different  notes  in 
music  are  sweet  only  for  the  harmony  they  combine  in 
producing,  and  are  but  barren  apart,  or  jangling  discords 
together  when  they  fail  of  that,  so,  if  we  miss  the  con 
cord  and  rest  only  in  the  oppugnance  of  our  opinions, 
life  will  be  a  battle-field  of  clash  and  collision,  and 
barren  as  the  plain  ploughed  with  cannon-balls.  When 
we  call  a  man  acute,  we  give  him  the  property  of  a 
knife.  It  is  a  better  gift  to  heal  the  breach. 

Let  me  add  that  the  notion  we  have  of  infinite  dura 
tion  or  extent  is  inseparable  from  an  idea  of  infinity  in 
the  mind  by  which  such  notion  is  entertained.  Our  soul 
is  that  circle  which  has  no  beginning  or  end.  Herschel 
or  Proctor  does  not  pretend  to  describe  or  enumerate 
the  stars  which  stretch  off  beyond  imagination  of  mor 
tal  ken ;  and  as  new  planets  are  discovered  sailing  into 
the  port  of  knowledge,  or  as  a  more  potent  telescope 
reaches  other  of  the  stars  which  we  so  ignorantly  and 
incorrectly  call  fixed,  even  so  gradual  and  endless  is 
our  revelation  to  ourselves.  When  Mr.  Gough  lectures 
to  the  farmers  among  the  White  Hills,  their  surprise  is 
in  the  sensations  and  conceptions  of  which  the}T  had 
never  supposed  they  were  capable,  but  which  arise  from 
their  unconsciousness  into  conscious  states,  as  subma 
rine  volcanoes  push  islands  above  the  surface  of  the 
deep.  No  memory  or  experience  can  surround  the 
mind,  and  no  prophecy  equal  or  antedate  our  destiny. 


16  PRINCIPLES. 

There  are  worse  than  Chinese  limitations  in  any  meta 
physical  map  of  our  powers,  and  how  all  outward  prog 
ress  is  but  figure  of  this  fact !  Travel  had  come  to  an 
end  of  its  fancied  possibilities  in  the  old  stage-coaches 
over  the  hilly  roads,  till  the  wondrous  panorama 
unrolled  turnpikes  and  tunnels,  and  Menai  and  St. 
Lawrence  River  bridges,  with  pillarless  spans,  and  lo 
comotives  with  steel  and  iron  rails.  Something  like 
a  Baltimore  clipper  to  outstrip  the  Dutch  galleon 
and  Chinese  junk  was  once  the  paragon,  without  a 
dream  of  Fulton's  day,  with  screws  and  paddles  driven 
by  steam,  to  make  the  waters  bubble  and  boil.  Her 
Majesty's  mail  was  quick  enough  transit  for  a  letter  till 
the  lightning  bore  the  message  with  a  different  sort  of 
post-haste.  What  shall  we  say  of  the  phonograph's  or 
microphone's  record  and  vocal  or  instrumental  restora 
tion,  or  the  telephone's  transmission  of  sound  ?  We  have 
not  explored  our  physical  situation  more  than  a  ship's 
keel  has  traversed  every  rood  of  the  sea.  But  what  an 
impiety  to  confine  our  thought  to  the  outward  utility  of 
these  earthly  developments,  when  they  are  also  such 
hints  of  a  spiritual  advance,  and  cipher-despatches  whose 
meaning  can  be  divined  only  in  new  and  loftier  affections 
of  mankind  !  Are  not  these  easements  and  furtherances 
signs  of  a  goodness  for  us  to  copy  and  carry  out? 

Especially  we  may  infer  that  criticism,  or  estimate  of 
merit  or  fault  in  a  book,  picture,  or  character,  must  al 
ways  fall  short  of  the  subject,  as  an  inventory  of  house 
hold  goods  will  leave  out  something,  at  least  the  house 
hold  gods,  especially  if  what  we  judge  is  a  personal 
or  social  growth,  as  of  a  youth  bursting  his  clothes. 
We  have  historians,  but  no  history  was  ever  written. 


DEFINITION".  17 

The  Bible  is  as  indefinable  as  the  assimilation  of  food. 
We  may  take  exception  to  its  learning  or  logic  or 
moral  standard,  varying  as  it  does  with  the  ages  it  rep 
resents  ;  but  in  its  divine  touches  on  human  souls  is 
somewhat  escaping  every  solvent  or  probe,  and  so 
wrought  into  its  old  texture  that  no  Scripture  anthology 
will  preserve  it  or  Bible  of  to-day  take  its  place.  The 
Coliseum  is  precious  in  the  ruins  and  clambering  vines 
that  tell  its  stor}T,  which  any  architectural  restoration 
would  miss,  and  a  modern  structure  on  the  same  spot 
unravel.  "  A  piece  is  gone  from  that  old  English  Bos 
ton  church  window,"  said  my  friend,  "  but  we  will  put 
nothing  in  its  place."  Nature  is  a  quality  and  quantity 
that  cannot  be  denned,  outlined  by  any  draughtsman,  or 
seen  by  Argus  with  all  his  eyes.  As  reasonable  crea 
tures  we  own  functions  and  processes  which  reason  nei 
ther  accurately  notes  nor  performs.  Could  Alexander 
have  beheld  his  interior,  other  worlds  for  him  to  conquer 
would  have  been  disclosed.  Could  Humboldt  have  seen 
the  cosmos  as  a  microcosm  of  the  mind,  he  would  not 
have  called  himself  an  insect  crawling  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  It  was  an  uninspired  theology  that  tried  to 
sing,  — 

"  What  worthless  worms  are  we  !  " 

The  planet  is  our  plaything,  and  smaller  than  we.  As 
explorers  try  for  a  northwest  passage  to  a  circumpolar 
sea,  we  seek  a  shoreless  ocean,  but  have  not  got  out  of 
our  human  straits.  We  are  like  an  infant  slowlj*  dis 
covering  its  own  limbs,  for  our  spiritual  members  are 
still  hidden  from  our  eyes,  while  our  "  glassy  essence" 
for  ever  escapes.  We  cannot  learn  too  much,  and  the 


18  PRINCIPLES. 

thirst  for  knowledge  must  be  slaked,  not  rebuked  ;  but 
we  may  be  and  are  too  knowing,  and  it  is  a  questionable 
compliment  New  England  pays  to  itself  of  being  the 
brain  of  the  land.  This  nasal  tone  of  ours,  the  string- 
music  of  the  head,  needs  tempering  and  softening  with 
wind-instruments,  the  flutes  of  feeling.  Let  us  have 
respect  for  the  concrete  and  established,  and  rely  less 
on  those  abstractions  which  are  air-plants  without  his 
toric  roots. 

Definition  itself,  I  conclude,  must  be  with  strict  limits 
defined.  What  is  it  but  a  cutting  off  or  dissecting,  for 
convenience,  of  things  which  are  not  severed  after  all? 
We  speak  of  kingdoms  in  nature  ;  but  is  the  mineral 
stricthr  one  of  them,  with  its  flint  on  the  edges  of  the 
sworded  grass,  and  its  gravel  the  white  spheroid  of  a 
bird's  egg,  its  lime  in  a  turtle's  shell,  cattle's  horns, 
beetle's  wings,  claws  and  hoofs  of  animals,  bones  and 
teeth  of  men  ?  Is  it  mineral  when  every  atom  of  it  is 
pervaded  with  thought  or  feeling,  moving  with  will  and 
sensitive  to  pleasure  or  pain?  Therefore  not  for  the 
indefinite,  .but  a  quite  other  thing,  the  infinite,  I  plead. 
Covenants  and  articles  have  their  value,  but  are  not  in 
valuable,  any  more  than  is  articulate  speech.  After  the 
clatter  of  tongues  in  the  market  or  the  hall,  I  find  good 
societ}'  in  my  dog.  He  has  the  excellence  and  advan 
tage  of  being  dumb.  He  makes  observations,  but  no 
remarks.  He  is  silent,  but  how  attentive  !  He  under 
stands  from  a  look  or  motion,  without  a  word.  He  does 
not  pester  me  with  conceits  of  wisdom  or  reproofs  of 
my  behavior,  and  is  the  first  of  all  flesh  to  forgive  my 
sins.  He  is  a  piece  of  nature,  and  does  not  try  to  per 
ceive  how  much  he  weighs  or  girts. 


DEFINITION.  19 

But  the  metes  and  bounds  that  man  sets  and  per 
ceives  in  the  outward  aspects  of  things,  and  from  which 
the  Romans  took  their  hint  for  a  god  of  bounds,  by 
their  contrast  with  the  illimitable  they  offset,  give  to 
man  such  a  sense  of  the  infinite  as  no  beast  can  be  sup 
posed  to  possess.  Some  feeling  of  it  the  bird  may  have 
in  its  flight,  but  how  far  short  of  the  sailor's  as  he  puts 
forth  from  port,  or  of  the  poet's  imagination,  soaring 
"  from  earth  to  heaven,  from  heaven  to  earth,"  or  of 
any  person's  as  he  loses  himself  in  reverie  or  is  dis 
solved  in  wonder  that  washes  out  all  care  and  fever 
from  his  mind,  till  he  feels  like  an  angel  as  he  comes  out 
as  from  a  bath  in  the  actual  sea.  No  human  act  or  ex 
pression  can  be  rigidly  denned.  Our  look,  caress,  or 
kiss  is  not  the  same  for  a  different  person,  although  no 
physiology  can  denote  or  geometry  measure  the  lines 
of  change.  Love  is  indefinable.  It  cannot  stand  still 
to  have  its  measure  taken  for  any  garment  of  words. 
While  present  it  withdraws  into  the  past,  projects  it 
self  into  the  future,  retires  to  the  closet  with  God,  or 
rises  into  heaven  after  angels  unseen.  It  glows  in  the 
face  and  hides  in  the  breast.  It  opens  a  drawer  or 
rifles  a  grave  of  what  cannot  crumble  or  decay.  Seeing 
itself  in  the  glass  of  memory,  it  is  transformed  into  the 
image  of  hope,  and  in  this  little  figure  of  a  mortal  ves 
sel  it  coasts  along  the  immense.  But  we  have  this 
treasure  in  an  earthen  vessel  which  the  love  is  ready  to 
cast  away  for  any  ideal  object,  for  companion  or  country, 
God  or  Christ,  on  which  it  is  fixed.  We  feel  that  our 
love  is  more  and  greater  than  ourselves,  even  an  infinite 
spirit  that  enters  upon  our  mortality  as  its  lawful  estate 
and  heritage,  and  uses  us  as  servants  for  its  own  ends ; 


20  PRINCIPLES. 

for  he  is  a  stranger  to  the  sentiment  who  fancies  that 
love  means  his  own  pleasure  instead  of  another's  wel 
fare  and  universal  good. 

We  are  related  to  the  infinite  in  every  way  ;  and  we 
should  not  question  so  much  and  long  about  the  Buddh 
ist  Nirvana,  but  for  its  real  sense.  There  is  a  bliss,  not 
indefinite  but  indefinable,  yet  clear  and  vast  as  a  cloud 
less  atmosphere,  as  we  "  are  laid  asleep  in  body  and 
become  a  living  soul."  When  ordinary  slumber  ap 
proaches,  and  is  just  about  to  touch  in  their  healthy 
fatigue  our  waking  powers  ;  when,  after  long  listening 
to  its  holy  sound,  the  last  vibrations  of  the  bell  in  some 
cathedral-tower  faint  away  from  the  ear,  perhaps  in  a 
foreign  land  ;  when  in  a  quiet  hour  on  the  sea- shore  the 
waves  softly  lap  the  sand,  or  with  just-heard  sob  and 
melodious  murmur  leave  the  crevices  of  the  rock  ;  when 
the  rustle  of  leaves  on  the  tree  dies  by  as  gentle  degrees 
as  does  the  wind  that  had  stirred  it ;  when  some  expert 
performer,  after  -a  touching  air,  draws  out  with  his  bow 
on  the  string  the  note  so  fine  we  cannot  tell,  for  the 
ghostly  echoes,  at  what  time  it  ceased ;  above  all,  in 
some  hour  of  devoted  love  or  spiritual  communion,  when 
our  cup  of  content  is  full  to  overflowing,  and  we  are, 
like  the  sun,  as  calm  as  we  are  warm,  —then  our  being 
blends  with  the  divine,  we  share  the  blessedness  of 
God,  and  feel  secure  as  he. 

"  Those  storms  must  shake  th'  Almighty's  seat 
Which  violate  the  saint's  retreat." 

But  this  ecstasy  is  a  sort  of  death  :  it  is  dying  to  one's 
self,  to  all  action  or  distinct  volition ;  it  is  annihilation 
of  the  separate  will,  a  trance  of  every  feeling  and  fLo- 


DEFINITION.  21 

ulty,  —  not  knowing,  like  Paul,  whether  we  are  in  the 
body  or  out  of  the  body,  only  that  we  are  in  ' '  the 
third  heaven."  As  scientists  say,  the  higher  up  in 
the  sk}r  the  more  serene  it  is,  so  this  is  the  tranquil 
firmament  of  the  soul.  The  hour  of  action  will  strike, 
but  the  season  of  rest  is  also  wholesome  and  good, 
when 

"  Not  a  wave  of  trouble  rolls 
Across  our  peaceful  breast." 

But  our  science  tends  to  points  of  matter,  and  the  demand 
now  is  to  be  definite.  Define  your  opinion,  position, 
objection  !  Exact  information  is  the  order  of  the  day. 
So  much  has  been  accomplished  through  the  microscope 
and  telescope  and  all  other  nice  instruments  of  modern 
investigation,  that  we  hope  at  length  to  detect  God  and 
heaven  through  an  object-glass,  or  resolve  them  in  a 
crucible.  Have  we  not  ascertained  the  speed  of  light, 
and  different  rates  at  which  its  diverse  beams  travel, 
the  number  of  particles  or  vibrations  in  a  given  space, 
and  the  protoplasmic  tile  which  is  the  only  substance 
used  or  using  itself  to  build  ' '  this  universal  frame "  ? 
I  have  to  say,  what  is  real  in  this  world  is  not  dis 
covered  so.  Dr.  Way  land  wrote  with  great  wisdom  on 
the  "  Limitations  of  Human  Responsibility,"  but  they 
were  never  found.  Who  can  tell  just  where  the  pe 
numbra  of  a  planet  ends?  So  indeterminate  is  the 
shadow  into  which  all  our  ideas  go  or  come.  Our  af 
fections  alike  refuse  to  have  their  measure  taken  or  field 
staked  out ;  if  restricted,  they  are  destroyed,  whether 
it  be  a  divine  or  human  person  on  which  they  are  fixed. 
If  we  cannot  have  unbounded  confidence  in  our  com- 


22  PRINCIPLES. 

panions,  parents,  partners,  children,  customers,  friends, 
we  cannot  have  any.  This,  shall  I  say  in  passing,  is 
the  sad  feature  in  our  social  life,  that  our  offspring 
as  they  grow  up  so  often  cease  to  confide  in  father 
or  mother,  and  that  members  of  the  same  family  so 
strangel}7  withhold  the  expression  of  the  love  for  each 
other  they  feel.  What  shame  or  distrust  so  hinders 
the  outlet  of  nature,  and  becomes  the  heart's  bane,  so 
that  .3'oung  people  open  their  breasts  more  freely  to 
those  they  are  but  half  acquainted  with  than  to  any 
kindred  or  co-mate  under  the  roof?  This  imperfect 
sympathy  is  the  chief  evil  and  main  suffering  in  our 
domestic  state.  But  we  starve  without  love,  and  the 
supply  will  be  sought  elsewhere  that  fails  at  home.  A 
great  affection  is  the  true  sacramental  bread  and  wine, 
and  how  much  ground  it  covers  who  could  ever  tell? 
But,  if  it  have  no  boundaries,  it  has  tests.  This  is  the 
criterion,  that  it  seeks  its  object,  but  not  its  own 
pleasure  in  that  object ;  it  rubs  not  round  it  to  come 
back ;  it  interferes  not  with  any  other  affection  or  law 
ful  relation  more  than  a  bird  with  an  engine  over  which 
it  flies.  It  never  robs  one  person  to  pa}*  another.  It 
enriches  every  worthy  regard,  and  throws  its  flood  into 
all  the  channels  of  feeling,  as  the  Nile  or  Mississippi 
spreads  into  wide  or  manifold  mouths.  He  may  ques 
tion  his  devotion  to  one  who  is  not  good  to  all.  If  one 
says  she  cannot  visit  her  mother  in  her  age  and  infir 
mity  because  she  is  married,  and,  like  the  person  in  the 
parable,  cannot  come,  all  love  is  attainted  by  the  word. 
How  really  valuable  to  her  husband  can  be  a  love  so 
pinched?  Sentiment  is  never  a  cistern  that  can  be 
reckoned,  but  a  stream  or  spring  which  it  might  puz- 


DEFINITION.  23 

zle  any  surveyor  to  gauge.  The  disciple  asked  the 
Master  how  often  he  should  forgive,  and  the  calculation 
was  refused.  Numberless  times,  Jesus  answered,  in  his 
poetic  form  of  "seventy  times  seven."  It  has  been 
said,  error  is  manifold  and  truth  is  one ;  but  I  say, 
error  or  evil  is  finite  and  truth  or  good  infinite.  No 
devil  is  God's  rival ;  and  it  was  in  the  East  a  false  and 
infantile  theolog}'  that  equalled  the  Destroj'er  with  the 
Creator.  When  Religion  leaves  its  cradle  and  becomes 
of  age,  it  learns  that  good  affections  alone  hold  of  the 
infinite,  and  bad  dispositions,  storm  and  rage  as  they 
will,  are  feeble  and  doomed  to  defeat.  You  may  de 
fine  j^our  denials  and  doubts  ;  but  objections  to  any  real 
affirmations  proceed  commonly  from  weak  self-impor 
tance  or  a  foolish  pride  and  revenge.  It  is  the  mis 
take  of  our  education  to  make  the  understanding,  which 
is  alwa}Ts  a  limited  faculty,  sharp  at  the  expense  of  that 
whole  nature  whose  artless  charms,  as  it  basks  in  the 
sun  of  being,  are  ill  exchanged  for  over-conscious  and 
ambitious  intellectual  gains.  Men  lose  truth  in  adroit 
ness,  and  women  ma}7  be  accomplished  and  unsexed. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  going  to  school  too  much,  and 
excluding  from  the  store-room  of  the  brain  what  is 
more  precious  than  the  Greek  or  geometr}'  put  in. 

In  religion,  moreover,  and  no  less,  let  us  beware  of 
sacrificing  the  infinite  to  the  finite.  All  the  piety  is 
not  in  the  Church,  more  than  all  the  coal  and  oil  in 
Pennsylvania,  gold  in  California,  cotton  in  Carolina, 
water  in  the  reservoir,  or  money-value  in  the  mint. 
We  must  not  put  doctors  of  divinity  and  ecclesiastical 
institutions  for  nature  and  history,  man  and  God ;  for 
God's  acre  is  no  burial-ground  of  past  existence,  and 


24  PRINCIPLES. 

we  can  insulate  but  a  few  particles  of  his  electricity  in 
the  glass  jar  of  a  creed.  Every  author  has  his  own 
limitations ;  why  should  I  escape  mine  ?  Fortunate 
chick  that  leaves  its  shell  with  no  broken  bit  or  un- 
absorbed  drop  on  its  back  !  Not  unfortunate,  if  it  can 
chip  its  way  into  the  sunlit  sphere.  My  friend  with 
the  incubator  leaves  such  as  have  not  strength  for  that 
to  perish  in  their  ston}^  womb. 

The  intuition  or  apprehension  of  the  infinite  limits 
alike  the  logical  and  the  scientific  sphere.  The  pure 
logician  fancies  that  truth  will  come  out  at  the  end  of 
his  process  like  a  toy  from  a  turning-lathe. 

Truth  is  no  such  product,  but  a  perception  identical 
with  what  is  perceived  and  a  creation  to  those  in  whom 
the  perception  does  not  exist,  be  it  wisdom  or  beauty 
which  the  seer  may  show ;  and  natural  science,  which 
professes  to  deal  only  with  what  has  a  beginning  and  an 
end,  owns  only  phenomena  and  the  laws  under  which 
they  can  be  arranged.  Only  the  faculties  of  sense  and 
understanding  does  it  employ,  while  there  are  other  pow 
ers  of  affection,  imagination,  conscience,  and  worship  as 
deep  at  least  as  sense  and  understanding  in  the  soul,  and 
not  amenable  at  their  bar,  which  Infinity  alone  can  draw 
or  feed.  If  the  scientist  confine  himself  to  what  begins 
and  ends,  and  the  man  put  himself  wholly  into  the  sci 
entist,  he  abdicates  his  manhood  and  takes  his  crown 
of  divinity  off.  But  the  greatest  scientists  communing 
with  a  kindred  and  knowable  One  in  All  still  wear  the 
diadem  that  sparkles  in  the  light  of  God's  countenance. 
I  know  a  mathematician  who  has  weighed  the  sun  and 
stars  without  being  weighed  by  them,  but  whose  mind 
remains  for  the  solar  system  and  the  whole  material 


DEFINITION.  25 

universe   an   overweight,  as  it  must  be  whenever  the 
soul  is  in  the  other   side  of  the  scale. 

Therefore,  only  as  a  pure  abstraction  can  religion  be 
defined.  The  Christian  religion,  as  a  life  and  world 
movement,  may  be  held  in  our  heart-strings  and  beheld 
in  vision,  appreciated  and  obeyed,  but  not  intellectu 
ally  quite  understood.  Christ  was  never  rejected,  only 
misunderstood  and  mortally  slain.  Can  the  sun,  air, 
and  water-spring,  can  goodness,  gentleness,  and  truth, 
be  rejected  ?  Christ  not  only  indoctrinated,  but  with 
his  incision  inoculated,  mankind.  Certainly,  we  exag 
gerate  his  individuality  when  we  confound  it  with  the 
infinity  to  which  it  relates.  When,  like  the  wise  men, 
feeling  nothing  is  too  good  for  him,  we  bring  the  gold, 
frankincense,  and  myrrh  of  every  rich  thought,  tender 
and  glad  or  troubled  feeling,  to  his  feet,  and  say,  It  is  all 
yours,  we  rob  the  Being  whom  alone  he  came  to  reveal, 
and  whose  alone  it  all  is.  But  his  religion  is  not  a 
dogma  :  it  is  a  growth  ;  and  to  reduce  it  to  a  set  of  ar 
ticles,  or  arrest  it  in  airy  old  Romish  or  other  sect,  is  as 
if  we  should  relegate  the  animal  or  vegetable  realm  of 
all  beauty  and  fragrance  and  vital  grace  in  the  garden, 
field,  earth,  and  air,  to  the  huge  saurians  and  the  early 
gigantic  ferns.  He  is  an  automaton  in  theological 
schemes  and  an  idol  when  made  an  end,  no  better  in 
principle  than  a  savage  fetich  when  he  is  a  finality  ;  but 
in  this  social  line  along  which  as  live  traditions  we  are 
handed  down,  he  shot  the  gulf  and  made  the  connection 
between  the  human  and  divine.  Little  threads  had 
been  passed  across  the  roaring  chasm  before,  but  he 
was  the  cable  drawn  after.  As  reason  to  us,  he  an 
swers  to  reason  in  us,  and  so  far  as  Rome  withstands 


26  PRINCIPLES. 

reason  she  does  not  represent  or  continue  him.  A 
French  caricaturist  represents  the  priests  as  burning 
the  books  and  extinguishing  the  lamps  in  an  open  hall, 
while  they  cry  out,  "Quick,  quick*!  let  us  kindle  the 
fires  and  put  out  the  lights,"  certain  shadowy  crosses 
rising  in  the  background  to  hint  the  light-bearers'  fate. 
What  responsibility  for  such  perversion  lies  with  the 
Author  of  our  religion  ?  He  is  belied  by  such  as  identify 
with  any  intolerance  his  mind.  Christianit}r  is  rooted 
in  and  grows  out  of  the  seed  he  planted,  of  which  no 
persecution  is  a  blossom,  and  which  is  yet  no  air-plant, 
but  runs  without  a  break  or  fault  through  or  under 
all  the  monstrous  and  cruel  superstition  back  to  his 
birth.  Is  it  better  to  humanize  than  to  Christianize? 
This  is  a  catchword  question.  For  is  not  all,  if  not  hu 
mane,  yet  in  some  sense  human,  that  human  creatures 
are  and  do  ?  The  Turks  are  men  ;  yet  an  English  trav 
eller,  observing  their  atrocities,  said,  "  If  a  Bulgarian 
could  vomit  any  thing  it  would  be  a  Turk."  Christian 
ity  is  in  no  conclusion  but  what  it  tends  to  become.  The 
man  Jesus  cannot  be  put  back  into  Mary's  babe,  and 
Judaea  is  too  small  now  for  Christ's  cradle,  which  he 
can  no  more  return  to  than  the  old  nebula  could  re 
sume  the  sun.  Let  ambitious  theorizers  put  their  ideas 
into  a  show-case ;  we  must  have  some  bread  of  life  to 
eat.  Each  sect  is  but  a  pigeon-hole,  from  pale  Radi 
calism  to  scarlet  Rome ;  but  true  religion,  according 
to  the  old  Greek  phrase,  is  an  everlasting  flow.  Jesus 
was  but  a  germ ;  and  what  a  borrower  from  heaven 
and  earth  is  every*  germ  that  succeeds. 

But  Christianity  is  no  denial  of  liberty,  rather  its  se 
curity  and  pledge.     How  many  a  soul  it  has  released 


DEFINITION.  27 

to  rush  into  action  and  receive  good  !  In  Faust's  cham 
ber  one  corner  of  the  mystic  triangle  had  to  be  loosened 
to  let  the  evil  spirit  but ;  this  same  religion  makes  a 
road  for  the  good  one  in.  Freedom  we  want  and  ask. 
We  breathe  the  atmosphere  and  tread  the  globe.  Nests 
of  birds  and  lairs  of  beasts  are  open  to  the  day.  Eveiy 
thing  pines  in  a  cage.  The  sea-lion  taken  from  his 
Pacific  swimming-school  and  carried  round  in  a  show 
man's  tank  snorts  out  his  wrath  and  disgust ;  and  we 
find  only  a  prison  in  the  largest  domain  of  fact  and  rule. 
When  the  scientist  can  reckon  how  far  a  musical  vibra 
tion  may  reach,  he  may  tr}T  to  render  this  other  thrill  of 
countless  chords  in  the  human  heart.  God  goes  when 
we  fill  the  space  with  physical  laws.  Make  out  your 
list  of  things  not  to  pray  for,  —  health,  rain,  the  dead,  or 
a  better  temper  in  yourself,  —  and  when  you  have  fin 
ished  }7our  catalogue  you  will  cease  to  pray.  A  young 
girl  was  sick  as  unto  death,  and  there  was  no  virtue  in 
medicine  for  her  case  ;  but  all  the  rest  of  the  house  gath 
ered  around  her  in  soft  watch  day  and  night,  fed  her  from 
their  life,  with  the  cords  in  their  bosoms  held  her  to  her 
moorings,  and  pra}~ed  back  her  flitting  ghost ;  and  I 
said  to  the  mother,  ' '  But  for  such  devotion  your  child 
would  have  died."  She  answered,  "  It  is  so  ! "  I  met  my 
neighbor  moping  about  his  ailing  horse,  which  he  said 
he  must  lose.  I  said,  "Do  not  let  him  know  your 
opinion ;  it  will  kill  him  if  you  do :  carry  not  your 
wretched  face  into  the  barn,  but  speak  cheerfully  to 
him ;  pat  him,  tell  him  he  has  a  good  chance,  be  trust 
ful  and  he  will  get  well,"  as  he  did ;  for  the  tame  and 
wild  creatures  partake  our  feeling  and  share  in  the  dif 
fusion  of  knowledge.  The  cat  understands  whom  to 


28  PRINCIPLES. 

trust,  the  old  rat  shuns  the  trap,  the  bird  or  squirrel 
measures  a  different  distance  from  different  persons 
according  to  its  confidence  or  fear.  A  like  sentiment  to 
what  is  above  us  is  our  support ;  and  is  there  not  for  a 
man  in  the  catalogue  a  place  as  much  as  for  a  butterfly 
or  a  bug?  What  are  his  characteristics  and  evident 
notes?  Not  only  to  argue  or  observe,  but  to  hope  and 
wonder  and  love  and  pra'y.  The  flash  in  the  eagle's 
e}re,  the  color  on  the  flamingo's  wing,  is  not  left  out  in 
the  list  of  their  traits  ;  wh}T  omit  those  of  my  prop 
erties,  affections,  and  aspirations,  which  are  the  best 
arguments  of  my  origin  and  end?  Please,  O  naturalist, 
in  }rour  collection  put  me  down  !  The  text  is  venerable, 
the  tradition  noble,  and  the  resurrection  somehow  took 
place !  Yet  I  believe  in  my  soul  not  because  of  the 
book  ;  I  believe  in  the  book  because  of  my  soul.  Books 
and  institutions  may  be  riddled  with  criticism,  but  there 
is  a  mark  in  me  no  arrow  can  reach.  A  simply  ritual 
or  biblical  religion  with  an  ever-growing  number  of 
persons  can  no  longer  meet  the  case ;  yet  despise  not 
the  office  it  has  done.  How  much  service  has  been  per 
formed  by  that  cast-away,  wrenched,  and  rust}T  railway- 
coupling  which  no  one  deigns  to  pick  up  !  Some  spirit 
ual  bond  we  must  have  ;  but  scorn  not  the  ancient  while 
you  fashion  the  new !  May  the  fresh  chain  draw  as 
much  treasure,  and  more,  over  rumbling  bridges,  along 
gloomy  defiles  and  the  edge  of  precipices  of  peril,  into 
places  of  safety  and  peace  !  A  reasonable  radicalism  is 
always  in  order,  as  a  strike  may  sometimes  be  in  place. 
But  healthy  division  and  subdivision  are  for  reunion. 
Not  logic,  but  love,  made  the  .world,  and  language  was 
invented  both  to  distinguish  and  unite.  Lord  Bacon 


DEFINITION.  29 

! 

says  dry  light  is  the  best ;  but  the  natural  beam  is  yel 
low  in  the  sun,  blue  in  the  sky,  gray  or  azure  in  the 
sea,  hazy  in  the  horizon  or  on  the  hills,  a  Joseph's  coat 
in  the  rainbow,  and  a  chameleon  in  the  clouds ;  and 
truth  is  not  pure  white,  but  many- tin  ted,  and  like  a 
changeable  silk  or  gem.  Those  who  veiled  their  polit 
ical  designs  were  once  called  obscurantists;  and  there 
are  religious  folk  of  that  kind.  But  there  is  an  honest 
clear-obscure  in  nature,  in  art,  and  in  the  human  breast. 
There  is  a  charm  in  the  darkling  as  in  the  transparent 
stream. 

Understanding  alone  cannot  suffice.  Pure  intellect  is 
the  past,  instinct  is  the  present  tense.  Intelligence  is 
a  store,  not  the  first  perceiving  power ;  and  new  appre 
hension  must  keep  knowledge  alive,  else  it  becomes  a 
bank  whose  circulation  has  ceased.  Abstract  reason 
must  be  fed  by  other  faculties,  otherwise,  as  an  arnry 
without  forage,  it  starves.  Sap  the  ground  of  instinct 
with  sceptical  doubt,  and  you  endanger  the  superstruc 
ture  of  faith,  as  the  gay  city  of  Paris  is  undermined 
with  quarries  ready  at  an  earthquake  to  yawn.  All  our 
theories  are  held  in  check  by  the  never  quite  compre 
hended  facts,  —  the  fish  breathing  water,  the  bird  swim 
ming  in  air,  the  toad's  heart  beating  in  the  rock,  the 
human  frame  resisting  polar  cold  b}r  laws  we  imperfectly 
trace  but  can  nowise  comprehend.  All  statistics  are 
defied  by  the  simplest  act.  A  look,  caress,  kiss,  for  a 
different  person  is  not  the  same  thing ;  and  in  every 
thing  life  alone  can  instruct.  It  has  been  said  we  must 
learn  science  of  the  scientist,  art  of  the  artist,  and  the- 
olog}r  of  the  theologian.  But  we  shut  the  door  of  im 
provement  and  belittle  every  branch  of  knowledge  when 


30  PRINCIPLES. 

we  confine  it  to  itself.  As  well  give  the  cubic  contents 
of  Burrampooter  or  the  Nile  as  of  the  river  of  the  hum 
blest  life.  We  cannot  dissect  ourselves.  How  ghostly 
we  are  to  each  other,  and  what-  a  phantom  slipping  from 
us  is  the  world !  The  freedom  we  must  affirm  on  our 
passage  through  time  is  for  all.  Pope  Pius  pretended 
that  Italian  independence  made  him  a  prisoner  at  Rome. 
It  is  a  proper  confinement  if  the  common  liberty  puts 
an  individual  in  jail !  What  is  sacred  is  not  peculiar 
to  any  one  person  or  place.  Your  bottle  of  water  for 
a  baptism  from  the  Jordan  has  contracted  a  soil  and 
stain  ;  the  neighboring  brook  is  more  clean.  The  pres 
ent  soul  alone  is  great ;  all  its  sin  or  sorrow  is  super 
ficial  as  a  flesh-wound.  From  the  adobe-house  it  now 
occupies  it  looks  out  to  the  firmament's  fiery  wheels. 
It  heals  itself  of  all  injury  from  whatever  hostile  or 
friendly  hand,  as  the  wounded  whale,  plunging  away, 
cools  in  the  broad  Atlantic  its  bleeding  flanks.  Faith  is 
latent  if  not  professed.  As  a  creature's  horn  does  not 
bud  to  be  blasted,  so  the  horn  of  our  hope  shall  be  ex 
alted  with  honor.  "  Some  faces,"  says  Goethe,  "have 
but  a  date  ;  others  a  history."  Let  me  add,  there  is  a 
prophetic  countenance.  Men  are  low,  but  on  an  as 
cending  grade  that  goes  out  of  sight.  Once  the  now 
human  being  may  have»  been  a  howling  beast.  After 
wards,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord"  issues  from  his  lips.  At 
last  he  absolves  his  brother  and  himself.  Pope  or  papa 
is  the  Real  Presence  in  any  soul. 

Let  us  not  lose  or  oppose  discrimination.  Things  are 
discrete,  and  must  neither  be  divided  nor  confused,  but 
property  distinguished  as  they  branch  from  their  hidden 
and  indescribable  root.  Adam  gave  names,  and  the 


DEFINITION.  31 

nominalist  has  with  the  realist  still  a  place ;  nor  has 
the  time  come  for  Christian  and  other  denominational 
titles  to  be  dropped.  Without  nomenclature,  poorly  as 
its  office  is  done,  we  should  not  know  w.here  we  are  in 
belief,  philosophy,  or  life.  Give  to  the  anti-Christian, 
it  has  been  said,  a  Christian  position  in  pulpit  and 
church,  as  on  the  same  subject  he  only  takes  a  different 
point  of  view.  In  the  fire  on  Fort  Sumter  the  seces 
sionists  took  a  different  point  of  view  with  their  guns, 
but  were  not  invited  to  trail  them  within  the  manned 
and  defended  walls.  Religious  faith  has  become  super 
ficial  when  we  can  unship  it  from  our  minds  as  a  tem 
porary  affair  or  JEolian  attachment,  and  kick  it  like  a 
footstool  away  to  carry  on  theological  discussions  by 
which  its  virtue  and  value  are  even  for  a  moment  dis 
allowed.  A  great  genius  like  Spinoza,  solving  Hebrew 
and  Christian  ideas  in  some  vast  generalization,  should 
have  welcome  among  all  thoughtful  men ;  but  to  an 
antagonist  of  our  religion  as  such,  why  should  the  rib 
bon  and  cross  of  moral  or  intellectual  honor,  as  in  a 
holy  war,  be  assigned?  When  liberality  becomes  lib 
eralism,  and  liberty  libertinism,  and  all  questions  are 
open,  conviction  has  deceased,  and  the  time  has  come, 
in  the  fundamental  and  fatal  indifference,  for  euthanasia 
or  the  Japanese  official  suicide  and  happy  despatch. 
That  season  in  this  world  arrives  timely,  sooner  or  later, 
to  nations  and  denominations  that  have  had  each  a 
worthy  mission,  as  it  does  for  suns  to  set  and  for  the 
morning  star,  that  saluted  early  risers  or  guided  belated 
wanderers,  to  fade  in  the  blazing  day. 


32  PRINCIPLES. 


II. 
EDUCATION. 

"  T  TE  has  splendid  talents ;  what  a  pity  he  had 
J-  J-  not  been  educated ! "  said  Taylor,  the  Bethel 
preacher,  of  Channing,  the  famous  divine.  The  strong 
and  supple  man  of  the  street  and  the  sea,  who  could 
row  and  reef  and  steer  and  order,  and  meet  men,  from 
the  sailor  to  the  president  or  king,  on  their  own  terms  ; 
head  of  the  table  in  all  companies  ;  graduate  of  the  uni 
versity  of  the  world  ;  his  fluent  bodjT  a  piece  of  music ; 
his  manners  a  flattery  of  mankind,  as  he  touched  with 
Oriental  courtesy  his  head,  his  heart,  and  his  lips  at  once, 
and  even  out  of  his  wife's  funeral  carriage  greeted  every 
acquaintance  with  a  shining  face  ;  the  cosmopolite,  yet 
idolater  of  Boston,  knowing  and  known  of  all,  that  never 
had  an  unhappy  day  in  his  life  ;  this  child  of  Boreas  and 
the  north  star,  who,  like  the  ship  he  loved,  had  taken  his 
shape  from  every  wind  and  wave  in  the  world,  yet  had 
an  unquenchable  supernatural  light  in  the  cabin  of  his 
brain  and  ever-heaving  love,  as  of  a  thousand  horse 
power,  in  his  beating  heart,  —  this  man  found  something 
stiff  and  angular  in  his  great  scholastic  contemporary, 
a  certain  planetar}-  distance  hard  to  overcome,  an  un 
smiling  solemnity,  and  a  fearful  foil  to  his  own  pla}'ful 
humor  and  perpetual  wit.  How  partially  educated,  with 
all  our  degrees,  most  of  us  are  !  Not  one  in  a  million 


EDUCATION".  33 

has  ninety  degrees  every  way,  like  the  sp'here.  My 
friend  mourns  over  her  dog,  a  handsome  collie,  that  by 
reason  of  a  neglected  education  he  remains  so  un 
trained.  When  he  could  be  taught  to  mind,  she  says, 
at  a.  word  or  wink,  to  fetch  and  carry,  follow  or  stay 
at  home,  bark  at  pedlers,  watch  the  wagon,  open  his 
eye  and  the  flap  of  his  ear  at  every  sound  in  the  night, 
and  to  distance  every  burglar  and  offensive  beast  with 
his  growl,  he  can  in  fact  only  give  his  paw,  whine 
and  drop  his  tail  when  he  is  sorry,  or  leap  up  into  her 
face  with  untimely  and  excessive  show  of  his  love.  But 
how  many  children,  not  to  say  men  and  women,  are  as 
undeveloped  as  this  puppy  of  a  year  old  !  We  have  our 
town  school,  our  acadenry,  and  college  ;  and  the  reading, 
writing,  and  ciphering,  and  languages  withal,  in  the 
preparatory  course  for  Harvard  or  Yale.  The  four- 
years'  curriculum,  porch  and  entr}^  of  a  profession, 
supposes  a  perfect  unfolding  of  some  sort.  But  who  is 
an  educated  person  ?  A  liberal  education  must  go  be 
yond  any  specialty  of  Latin,  Greek,  mathematics,  phys 
ics,  metaphysics,  or  of  expertness  in  medicine,  divinity, 
or  law,  which  is  scarce  better  than  an  apprenticeship  to 
a  trade  ;  and  it  must  draw  out  all  the  faculties,  so  that 
the  man,  after  his  minority,  shall  take  possession  of  his 
estate  with  a  cultivation  that  tries  its  resources.  An 
educated  person  adds  grace  to  knowledge.  He  never 
interrupts,  or  cuts  another's  sentence  in  two,  never 
storms,  swears,  laughs  obstreperously  or  makes  a  noise. 
"  He  shall  not  strive  or  cry,  neither  shall  any  man 
hear  his  voice  in  the  streets."  Turner  was  a  great 
painter ;  but  if  he  was  coarse  in  his  habits  or  gruff  to 
strangers,  so  far,  despite  his  canvas,  he  was  a  brute 

3 


34  PKINCIPLES. 

and  a  boor.  If  Goethe  touched  his  hat  to  the  civil 
power,  and  Beethoven,  like  a  Quaker,  nailed  his  to  his 
head,  the  poet  evinced  more  culture  than  the  musician. 
"We  may  be  revolutionary,  but  we  must  not  be  rude. 
We  speak  of  an  educated  face  and  voice.  What  un 
redeemed  wastes  and  deserts  in  some  countenances ! 
What  dissonance  as  of  savage  tom-toms  and  monotony 
as  of  Chinese  gongs  in  much  human  speech  !  Form, 
posture,  and  gesture  are  so  many  witnesses  or  detec 
tives  to  demonstrate  a  full -and  round  instruction,  or 
disproportion  and  deformity  worse  than  of.  statue  or 
building.  Webster  was  a  matchless  advocate,  but  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  discovered  a  hole  in  his  head. 

But  what  are  the  powers  whose  appearance  in  the 
frame  we  thus  hint?  Chief  or  only,  as  some  construe, 
are  the  senses  and  understanding,  purveyors  of  fact  and 
arrangers  of  phenomena  under  laws.  This  is  a  simple 
and  superficial  process,  which  makes  the  universe  a 
row  of  pins  or  so  many  hills  in  a  potato-field.  Animals 
can  count ;  and  the  learned  goat  in  Victor  Hugo's 
u  Notre  Dame  "  spells  out  "  Phoebus,"  the  name  of  Es- 
meralda's  hero,  sorting  the  letters  with  his  hoof.  But 
has  not  Science  a  right  to  the  van,  with  the  crowd  of  her 
triumphs  in  these  modern  times,  tracing  the  one  organic 
thread  on  which  worm  and  man  are  strung,  hunting  up 
in  all  things  our  relations,  establishing  the  derivation  of 
every  earthly  mine  and  quarry  from  the  sun  b}T  observa 
tion  of  the  metals  in  his  beams  ?  Admirable  industry 
and  success ;  pertaining,  however,  to  structure  and 
surface  alone.  But  are  not  these  investigations  deep, 
while  other  pursuits  and  abilities  are  comparatively 
shallow  and  on  the  outside  ?  I  answer,  as  materialists 


EDUCATION.  35 

we  are  on  the  outside,  for  matter  has  no  inside.  That 
is  its  definition.  The  ab}'ss,  the  core  of  the  planet, 
is  as  external  as  the  top  of  the  ground.  A  thought 
or  feeling  may  have  depth,  but  an  atom  or  a  con 
stellation  has  not.  Not  space  or  ether  is  fathomless, 
but  the  soul.  God  inhabits  not,  but  includes  the  sky  ; 
and  that  is  not  a  man  who  carries  not  the  heaven  he 
goes  to  in  his  heart.  "  In  this  place  is  one  greater 
than  the  temple,"  said  Jesus ;  marble  temple  at  Jeru 
salem,  or  the  one  not  made  with  hands,  mattered  not. 
"  Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried  unto  thee,"  sang 
David ;  but  he  meant  no  pit  or  gulf  under  the  sun. 
His  miserere  rose  from  his  troubled  breast. 

The  scientist  may  fanc}T  that  the  artist  is  trivially 
engaged  in  an  ornamental  business  ;  but  the  ornamen 
tation  is  as  near  as  is  the  skeleton  to  the  centre  and 
secret  of  the  creation.  Shall  I  do  or  see  aught  deeper 
than  this  morning's  sunrise  ?  Color  rides  as  far  as  doth 
the  chariot  of  form  in  which  it  is  borne.  God  is  an 
artist ;  whether  he  be  scientist,  who  shall  say  ?  Beauty 
pla}*s  on  the  features  of  persons  and  things,  as  does  the 
soul  in  expression  ;  but  our  cutting  through  its  lines,  so 
inconceivably  thin,  leads  to  nothing  more  profound. 
The  sense  of  beauty  and  the  native  disposition  to  repro 
duce  it,  and  to  figure  the  leagues  of  a  landscape  on  the 
inches  of  a  panel  or  bit  of  woven  cloth,  indicate  a  fac 
ulty  as  legitimate,  as  interior  and  immortal,  as  any 
tendency  to  explore  Nature  and  study  her  mechanical, 
chemical,  or  vital  operations,  though  the  scholar  be  a 
Columbus,  Harvey,  Newton,  or  Darwin. 

Our  best  sign  in  education  at  present  is  industrial 
art.  To  learn  and  know  how  things  should  be  done, 


36  PRINCIPLES. 

and  especially  how  to  do  them,  is  to  know  as  near  as  we 
can  how  they  are.  Jesus  tells  his  disciples,  doing  the 
will  informs  with  the  doctrine.  "  If  ye  know  these 
things,  happy  are  ye  if  ye  do  them."  The  world  is  will 
and  forth-setting ,  says  the  German  Schopenhauer.  Who 
understands  any  enterprise  like  those  engaged  in  it? 
The  creation  we  are  part  of  is  no  finished  plan  to  be 
surveyed  in  its  completeness,  but  a  vast  excursion  and 
undertaking  we  cowork  in  with  God,  which  would  have 
failed  and  floundered  had  he  ever  paused  one  day  in  seven 
self-complacently  to  call  it  good.  He  is  the  miscreant 
who  thwarts  instead  of  running  to  further  this  design. 

It  is  therefore  an  over-speculative  genius  that  puts 
the  idea  first.  u  In  the  beginning  was  the  word,"  or  the 
thought.  In  the  beginning,  adds  Goethe,  was  the  act, 
which  is  wisdom  and  love,  evolution  and  revelation,  fall 
ing  into  line  with  which  by  our  active  powers  is  the  way 
to  discern  the  truth  as  well  as  to  become  acquainted 
with  ourselves.  The  sculptured  Phidian  Greek  Jupiter 
ter  is  an  active  rather  than  a  reflective  figure.  God  does 
not  know  himself  theoretically,  but  in  his  offspring  and 
his  work.  He  comes  to  consciousness  in  what  he  in 
spires  and  brings  to  pass,  and  were  else  a  mystery  to 
himself !  Our  intelligence  is  not  abstract  and  absolute  : 
it  waits  on  our  performance,  without  which,  as  the  uni 
verse  is  a  grand  performance  uncoucluded,  we  shall 
never  see  where  we  are  in  our  neglect  of  what  we  have 
to  do ;  for  it  is  a  false  proverb,  that  action  is  narrow 
and  thought  broad,  and  a  true  one,  that  our  first  duty 
done  clears  up  the  second.  So  the  world,  made  in  six 
or  in  six  millions  of  days,  is  not  ended  or  ready  to  be 
burned,  but  needs  many  a  stroke  and  touch  yet ;  and 


EDUCATION.  37 

the  Japanese  that  takes  a  bit  of  metal  and  spends  his 
life  on  one  vase  whose  solid  bronze  beauty  all  Europe 
cannot  match,  is  more  on  the  discharge  of  an  earthly 
mission  and  the  direct  road  to  heaven  than  the  secta- 
rist  in  religion  with  his  scheme  of  salvation,  or  the  dis- 
puter  in  the  schools.  Creator  is  the  divine  chosen 
name,  or  Evolver,  as  we  shall  soon  say  ;  and  the  test  is 
what  we  have  done  in  the  way  of  betterments  of  the 
poor  imperfect  fashions  to  which  alone  nature  and  hu 
man  nature  have  been  equal  as  yet. 

But  that  we  may  not  misdo  or  undo,  we  must  have  the 
well-considered  plan.  To  accomplish,  not  simply  to  con 
sider  it,  is  the  everlasting  object  in  view.  No  earthly 
business  prospers  without  its  runners ;  and  the  highest 
name  for  the  immortals  is  angels,  —  messengers  that,  if 
they  did  not  fly  on  their  errands  through  earth  and 
heaven  and  hell,  ought  to  be  stripped  of  their  wings. 
For  the  sake  of  the  intellect,  if  that  be  not  only  eternal 
but  supreme,  we  should  favor  the  handiwork.  Indus 
trial  is  the  true  adjective  for  education.  Developing 
schools  is  no  misnomer.  We  shall  never  understand 
our  Author  or  ourselves  save  in  our  work,  and  that  is 
the  best  of  detectives ;  for  be  it  a  piece  of  joinery,  a 
garden,  poem,  picture,  in  all  by  a  law  the  man  will 
put  himself  or  his  spirit.  What  nonsense  that  we  do 
not  know  what  sort  of  a  man  was  Shakspeare  !  Does 
Michael  Angelo  need  other  biography  than  that  auto 
biography  of  which  his  brush  was  the  pen?  Who 
wants  or  can  have  a  better  history  of  Washington  All- 
ston  than  he  relates  in  his  Rosalie,  Lorenzo  and  Jes 
sica,  Jeremiah,  and  Belshazzar's  Feast?  The  French 
Millet  in  his  wooden  shoes  tells  with  his  pencil  his 


38  PRINCIPLES. 

S3Tmpathy  with  toil ;  and  Corot's  painted  sky  and  air 
and  transfiguration  of  the  landscape  predict  paradise. 
Said  the  veterinary  doctor,  "  You  must  trot  out  your 
horse  ;  how  can  I  tell  what  the  matter  is  with  him  while 
he  stands  in  the  yard  ? "  Action  discloses  health  or 
disease  in  body  or  mind. 

But  "where  is  no  vision  the  people  perish."  Must 
not  some  idea  of  our  nature  and  situation  fit  and  furnish 
us  for  our  stint  of  laborer,  farmer,  carpenter,  cabinet 
maker,  machinist,  artist,  or  artisan?  The  philosophic 
facutty  is,  indeed,  one  to  be  educated.  It  is  imperial 
and  reigns,  while  the  sciences  are  but  prefects  that  gov 
ern  with  local  rule  and  must  alwa}Ts  justify  their  admin 
istration  at  the  central  bar.  But  philosophy  should 
beware  of  formalism,  as  reality  can  be  caught  in  no  net 
of  phraseology,  nor  the  world  put  like  stray  cattle  in 
pound.  Every  perception  is  precious  ;  but  truth  is  an 
endless  game,  and  no  one  word  will  bear  being  repeated 
and  pressed  on.  Beyond  a  certain  point  it  becomes  an 
idol,  a  substitute  for  the  fact.  No  final  statement  is  pos 
sible.  "  He  has  overworked  the  participle,"  was  Rufus 
Choate's  complaint  in  court  of  a  witness  who  recurred 
with  suspicious  frequency  to  an  expression  he  had  evi 
dently  committed  to  memory  and  learned  b}T  heart,  to 
use  as  a  trump-card.  Logical  and  learned  terms  have 
no  magical  import  or  illumination,  and  are  so  over 
worked  by  metaphysicians  that  plain  people  guess  they 
are  dealing  with  a  black  art,  or  with  apothecaries'  labels, 
unintelligible  and  hard  either  to  read  or  pronounce. 
Every  system  is  but  a.  staging  or  step.  The  city  of 
God  is  but  in  part  surveyed  or.  built ;  and  not  a  few 
who  are  neither  color-blind  nor  deaf-mutes  are  devoid 


EDUCATION.  3U 

of  the  philosophic,  as  many  lack  the  mathematical  ca 
pacity.  .1  learn  that  the  class  of  a  certain  competent 
Harvard  lecturer  on  Immanuel  Kant  fell  down  to  one. 
All  the  explanations  of  that  nature,  which  is  a  projec 
tion  of  supernature,  are  provisional  and  no  ultimate 
accounts.  I  explore  nry  own  talents,  members,  and 
desires,  but  cannot  quite  get  my  hand  underneath  my 
self.  I  try  to  hoist  the  infinite.  The  roots  of  the  tree 
of  knowledge  run  too  deep,  and  its  fruit  hangs  too  high, 
for  me  to  dig  to  the  tendrils  or  reach  the  topmost 
bough.  I  have  to  temper  mty  Eve-like  curiosity  by 
sticking  to  some  calling  of  teacher,  preacher,  architect, 
engineer,  or  other  stint  by  which  I  can  serve  the  little 
set  I  live  in,  giving  up  the  ambition  to  circumnavigate 
that  larger  world  than  tempted  the  sails  of  Captain 
Cook.  Poet,  singer,  painter,  saint,  you  can  be,  but  not 
comprehender  of  your  origin  or  end.  I  can  do  my 
duty,  but  not  measure  my  doom.  It  pleases  me  to 
have  my  destiny  of  immortality,  including  a  personal 
consciousness  in  the  universal  soul,  planted  on  principle 
as  well  as  instinct,  or  on  actual  resurrection  or  revealed 
promise.  Whatever  may  become  of  the  fuel  in  me,  I 
feel  the  undying  flame.  Yet  my  fate  is  a  m}7steiy  I  go 
to  and  cannot  without  experience  extend  or  bound. 
What  a  debt  we  owe  to  philosophy  for  grappling  with 
subjects  in  which,  beyond  our  dress  and  dinner  and 
dickering,  we  are  concerned,  while  by  no  science  of 
matter  are  the  questions  entertained  which  we  thank 
God  we  can  ask !  To  positivism  life  is  a  riddle  and 
creation  a  conundrum  which  it  gives  up.  It  is  despair 
of  knowledge.  But  philosophy  examines  the  manifesto 
of  the  vessel  and  voyage  we  are  on.  It  at  least  hun- 


40  PRINCIPLES. 

gers  and  thirsts  for  information.  It  is  not  content  with 
bread  and  water  ;  and  by  its  expectation  more  than  its 
argument  establishes  for  us  an  eternal  claim.  It  is 
proof  itself  of  what  it  cannot  prove.  But  quarrel 
among  the  philosophic  as  among  the  scientific  class  is 
aggravated  and  made  inveterate  by  an  intellectual 
ingredient  which  keeps  every  passion  alive,  on  its  feet, 
and  armed  for  the  fray.  Meantime,  how  well  and 
wisely  the  immense  secret  is  kept!  God  knows  too 
much  to  undermine  the  humility  of  his  children  by  let 
ting  them  know  all.  Wonder  and  worship  are  effect 
ually  provided  for.  Every  experiment  fails  to  reduce 
sentiment  to  understanding,  like  that  first  one  in  the 
garden.  The  higher  we  climb,  the  deeper  into  the  pit 
of  amazement,  like  some  slipping  and  stunned  adven 
turer,  we  are  flung.  Let  not  religious  people  dread  any 
devastation  of  their  domain ;  nor  need  the  Pope  try 
to  fend  the  Church  from  wreck  with  any  buffer  of  syl 
labus,  encyclical,  or  Vatican  decree.  Nature  herself  is 
greater  security  than  a  college  of  cardinals  against  any 
swamping  of  the  soul  in  its  own  acquisitions.  Our 
astonishment  will  recur  and  still  have  its  revenge.  Its 
fountain  is  too  deep  to  be  drained.  Under  the  probe  of 
our  analysis  gushes  an  artesian  well ;  and  all  our  syn 
thesis  turns  out  to  be  but  a  gathering  of  sticks  for 
kindlings  to  this  interior  fire  we  call  prayer,  of  which 
our  closet  is  the  hearth. 

If,  however,  it  be  presumption  to  affirm  possible 
knowledge  of  the  whole,  it  is  worse  mistake  to  set 
limits  or  specify  aught  we  cannot  know.  When  a  phi 
losopher  talks  of  the  unknowable,  the  adjectives  and 
epithets  he  applies  to  it  are  absurd  and  have  no  gram- 


EDUCATION.  41 

matical  sense.  He  had  better  hold  his  tongue  and  his 
pen.  None  can  say  how  far  knowledge  will  go,  but  it 
cannot  overslaugh  the  religious  sentiment ;  for  that  is  a 
faculty  to  be  educated,  which  the  constructive  one  can 
not  outrank.  In  the  mental  stratification  nothing  is 
more  substantial  or  profound.  Is  not  its  impulse  like 
the  molten  jet  rather  of  the  precious  metals,  silver  and 
gold,  through  the  coarser  layers  of  the  globe ;  and  its 
secrecy  the  hiding  of  diamond  and  pearl  in  the  earth 
and  the  sea?  Yet  sensuous  curiosity,  in  our  time  so 
active,  is  held  to  be  the  only  channel  of  import,  and 
claimed  as  a  monopoly  for  the  mind ;  and  this  trade- 
wind  so  blows  that  a  deeper  faculty  encounters  discredit 
and  contempt.  With  us  it  is  all  to  be  a  scholar  and 
naught  to  be  a  devotee.  But  that  devotion  cannot  be 
crowded  out  which  is  no  easy  luxury  of  the  vestry  or 
conventicle,  like  the  puffing  of  a  shoal  of  porpoises  off 
the  cape  or  spouting  of  a  whale  in  mid  sea,  but  a  hold 
ing  of  the  breath  for  effort  and  effect,  beyond  force  of 
wind,  stream,  or  vapor.  Yet  the  idea  of  it  has  gone 
out  of  fashion.  We  peer  and  do  not  pray  !  On  what 
a  strong  diet  of  decrees,  election,  native  corruption, 
danger  of  hell-fire,  promise  of  heaven  to  the  faithful  as 
a  bait  dropped  by  those  apostolic  fishers  of  men,  our 
elders  were  fed  !  Fifty  years  ago  in  New  England  the 
divine  Being  could  not  be  ignored  more  than  an  iron 
pillar  or  the  tent-pole  over  the  patriarchs'  heads.  But 
now  an  atheist  is  as  good  as  anybody.  Having  filed 
away  all  the  old  points,  what  strong  meat  of  doctrine 
instead  have  we  left?  Miscalled  freedom  or  radicalism 
in  religion  puts  God  into  the  category  of  a  perhaps.  In 
our  seats  of  education  nothing  is  so  odious  to  the  boys 


42  PRINCIPLES. 

as  prayers,  which  they  miss  or  scramble  to,  half  dressed  ; 
and,  one  night  in  the  college  that  bore  me,  the  college- 
bell  was  ungeared,  lowered  to  the  ground,  and  thrown 
into  the  Androscoggin  River.  One  of  the  strange  icono 
clasts  had  his  shoulder  hurt,  and  his  soul,  I  doubt  not, 
still  more.  Our  Harvard  inscription  of  "  Christo  et 
Ecclesiae,"  if  still  read  yonder  on  the  wall,  how  many 
a  sluggard  and  profane  truant  is  conspiring  to  chisel 
out !  Why  not,  if  materialism,  with  a  dozen  so-called 
sciences  at  its  beck,  be  right?  Mr.  Tyndall's  irony  of 
a  pra}Ter-gauge  means  that  there  is  nothing  to  measure 
in  this  unmeaning  prayer.  Let  him  bring  a  sky-gauge, 
a  star-gauge,  or  a  heaven-gauge,  or  with  his  sinker 
touch  bottom  in  his  own  soul ;  then  we  will  try  his 
patent  for  hospitals,  applying  our  petition  to  one  ward 
and  passing  by  another  to  see  what  difference  it  will 
make  !  New  infidelity,  indeed,  which  proposes  to  cable 
the  deep  of  spirit  as  well  as  the  Atlantic  bed !  "I 
weigh  a  hundred  and  forty  pounds,  but  when  I  am  mad, 
a  ton,"  said  one.  There  is  tonnage  of  a  ship  and  of  a 
freight-car,  but  what  is  the  burthen  of  a  man?  Has 
Moses,  Napoleon,  David,  or  Paul  yet  got  into  the 
scales?  Not  alone  for  its  intrinsic  enchantment  and 
charm,  but  for  its  stimulus  to  the  intellect  and  as  the 
secret  of  genius,  is  it  in  order  to  insist  on  veneration  as 
a  power.  If  the  mind  be  a  debtor  not  simply  to  abstract 
study  but  also  to  art,  so  is  it  to  worship  ;  and  the  whole 
ecclesiastical  establishment,  bating  nuisance  of  insincer 
ity,  might  well  be  kept  up  simply  to  illuminate.  "  The 
Lord  shall  light  my  candle,"  said  the  Psalmist.  "  Thy 
word  is  a  light  unto  my  feet  and  a  lamp  unto  my  path." 
Lowly  waiting  at  the  gates  and  door-posts  of  the  One 


EDUCATION.  43 

who  will  not  fail  with  his  love  and  lustre  to  appear,  shall 
serve  our  thought  more  than  any  ambitious  will-worship 
for  success.  But  how  men  stand  on  tiptoe  and  strain  to 
get  their  eyes  above  heads  in  a  crowd  i  How  we  run 
neck  and  neck,  and  get  overstrained  !  Neuralgia,  paral 
ysis,  and  consumption  await  selfish  aspirants  who  burn 
the  midnight  oil  when  they  should  be  asleep.  They  die 
at  forty  or  fifty,  and  we  say  the}r  have  worked  too 
hard  !  Indeed  they  have,  hindering  God's  work  in  and 
through  them,  and  never  opening  that  humility  which 
is  his  only  door.  Delicious  awe  before  the  Highest 
is  worth  all  the  discoveries  of  cotton-gin,  mill-turbine, 
patent  reaper,  and  field  fertilizer,  purely  as  an  economic 
force.  The  Romans  reared  massive  aqueducts,  filling 
valleys  and  crowning  hills,  not  understanding  the  law 
by  which  a  flood  would  run  with  all  inequalities  of  level 
through  a  little  pipe.  All  we  want  for  a  nobler  efflux 
is  that  head  of  power  in  the  breast  which  genuine  own 
ing  of  Deit}*  will  supply,  and  which  makes  men  as  fresh 
and  3Toung  at  eighty  as  at  twenty,  with  feeling  virgin 
and  untouched.  If,  after  the  Latin  motto,  prudence  is 
a  great  revenue,  so  is  reverence.  How  men  sweat  and 
toil  to  beat  in  the  arena  or  to  distance  in  the  race  !  But 
when  I  tie  to  that  Will  which  is  a  perpetual  going  forth, 
I  feel  like  a  skiff  towed  at  a  steamer's  stern  ;  for  we  can 
use  up  gravitation  sooner  than  God.  My  neighbor  got 
tired  pumping  water  into  the  tank  at  his  house-top,  and 
he  put  a  van  on  his  barn,  over  the  well,  so  that  it  now 
furnishes  kitchen  and  table  and  hose-sprinkler,  with  a 
fountain  in  front  of  his  lawn  into  the  bargain,  while 
from  his  siesta  he  looks  on.  Doubtless  we  must  work 
as  well  as  wait ;  but  there. is  no  work  like  subduing  our 
own  selfish  will. 


44  PRINCIPLES. 

"  At  anchor  laid,  remote  from  home, 
Toiling  I  cry, '  Sweet  Spirit,  come! 
Celestial  breeze,  no  longer  stay, 
But  swell  my  sails  and  speed  my  way.'" 

Cowper's  prayer  and  its  answer  had  the  same  source. 

Of  this  vital  agency  let  us  apprehend  all  we  can ;  but 
the  fatal  destitution  is  to  be  without  the  conscious  push 
which  set  the  planets  in  their  orbits  and  brought  our 
progenitors  to  these  shores.  Bow  to  and  nurse  the  mo 
tive  power  but  for  which  the  mightiest  reflective  brain  is 
a  hulk,  a  machine  out  of  order,  a  train  helpless  and  in 
the  way,  or  an  engine  without  stir !  The  talents  and 
acquirements  of  many  men  are  like  those  cones  or  pyra 
mids  of  cannon-balls  rusting  useless  in  the  armory  yard  ; 
for  ammunition  there  must  be  powder  and  shot.  Perse 
vere,  and  let  us  have  your  last  speculation,  O  formulator 
of  the  world,  while  we  return  to  }TOU  our  no  better  cri 
tique  !  The  formula  does  not  hold  water  j'et,  hard 
though  it  ma}7"  be,  as  in  a  roof  or  boat,  to  find  the 
leak.  The  proof  of  progress  will  be  the  reducibleness 
of  your  terminology  to  some  clearness  of  common  par 
lance  and  common  sense,  enlarging  the  circle  of  light 
be}Tond  which  still  retreats  the  unknown  and  irreducible 
x  ;  for  what  a  calamity  were  it  to  have  the  horizon  really 
lifted  and  destroyed ! 

In  this  ascending  series  of  faculties,  after  their  values 
or  complementary  colors,  what  but  an  offshoot  of  the 
religious  sentiment  is  the  moral  sense,  it  being  to  Kant 
that  proof  of  Deit}'  which  philosophy  could  not  provide. 
All  else  may  be  illusory,  but  not  this  whisper  of  right 
and  ought  ordering  duty  even  at  the  cost  of  death. 
Was  calculation  of  social  advantage  the  root  or  occasion 


EDUCATION.  45 

of  conscience  ?  We  only  know  that  of  all  worthy  his 
tory  conscience  is  the  cause ;  and  wThen  we  delight  in 
the  beauty  and  fragrance  of  the  blossom,  we  care  not. to 
analyze  it  into  the  compost  of  rotting  kelp  malodorous 
on  the  soil.  Our  business  is  not  with  our  genesis  or  the 
unreachable  origin  of  aught  in  us  ;  it  is  with  our  bidding 
and  task.  Grandly  indecomposable  are  the  Ten  Com 
mandments,  however  the  rock  crumble  on  which  they 
are  writ !  What  is  authority  but  whatever  voice  can 
rebuke  for  sin  ?  The  preacher  needs  no  pulpit,  cassock, 
apostolic  succession,  or  ordination  vows,  if  he  be,  like 
Garrison,  the  imperative  mood  of  a  nation  to  which  all 
the  indicative,  subjunctive,  and  potential  moods  yield, 
unwilling  statesmen  dragged,  big  politic  brains  capitu 
lating,  and  the  armies  of  the  republic  obeying  at  last 
what  was  but  a  solitary  cry  of  Repent,  in  the  wilderness, 
at  first.  The  American  conscience  has  had  such  tuition 
on  questions  of  freedom  and  slaveiy,  peace  and  war, 
temperance  and  strong  drink,  that  the  wonder  is,  so 
much  dishonesty,  selfish  deceit,  and  benevolent  lying  are 
left,  to  accuse  our  la}ing  stress  on  wit  and  cleverness 
rather  than  justice  in  our  schools,  with  the  natural  con 
sequence  of  a  brood  of  politicians  and  churchmen  who 
postpone  truth  to  management  and  cunning,  and  with 
strange  insensibility  count  it  no  dishonor,  if  they  can 
carry  their  plans  and  save  their  traditions,  to  be  insin 
cere.  It  is  "  the  abomination  in  the  holy  place"  to-day, 
that  the  clergy  cling  to  what  has  been  handed  down, 
however  it  contradict  the  new  conclusions.  We  have 
not  arrived,  with  advance  of  the  whole  line,  beyond  the 
notions  of  a  six-days'  creation,  universal  deluge,  bodily 
resurrection,  turning  of  water  into  wine,  multipli cation 


46  PKINCIPLES. 

of  loaves  and  fishes  ;  why  not  add  the  gridirons,  ovens, 
and  earthen  pots?  Sad  show  between  worship  and 
thought  of  an  ever-deepening,  widening  gulf;  yet  how 
matched  and  offset  ~by  the  spectacle  of  the  supercilious 
belligerents  against  the  clerical  cloth,  who  care  but  to 
deny  or  criticise,  and  fling  with  right  good-will  from  their 
sling,  unlike  David's,  the  stone  of  denunciation,  while 
they  tender  not  the  bread  of  life  and  truth.  Give  us 
the  cobwebbed  cathedral- windows  through  which  some 
light  struggles,  give  us  food  mixed  with  gravel,  rather 
than  empty  fighting  and  barren  conceit !  Philip  de  Neri 
travelled  far  to  see  a  famous  saint,  and  directed  him  to 
pull  off  his  muddy  boots,  which  the  reputed  holy  man 
in  his  cell  refused.  "It  is  not  a  case,"  said  Philip; 
"  there  is  no  sanctity  where  there  is  no  humility."  To 
the  theological  reformers  we  must  offer  this  test :  Bring 
us  your  regiment  of  saints ;  this  is  the  only  argument 
we  cannot  resist !  If  you  be  sensual,  self-seeking,  sour 
and  contentious,  like  the  rest,  you  are  not  in  the  host  of 
God.  The  child  rebuked  for  playing  with  his  tin  sol 
diers  on  Sunday,  answered,  "  Oh,  mother,  this  is  the 
army  of  the  Lord;"  and  it  was  a  better  troop  than 
radicals  or  conservatives  contending  for  emolument, 
office,  and  honor  in  Church  or  State.  "Your  money 
is  orthodox,"  said  the  beggar  to  my  friend  who  waived 
the  appeal  for  aid,  and  wanted  to  get  off  on  the  ground 
of  being  a  heretic.  Is  there  any  schism  or  heresy  or 
heterodoxy  in  being  candid  and  pure  ? 

But  character  halts  without  aid  of  imagination,  which 
our  classes  in  Shakspeare  and  Browning,  music  and 
drawing,  recognize  not  only  as  amusement  and  by-pla}r 
of  the  mind,  but  a  co-ordinate  power.  Its  work  is 


EDUCATION.  47 

unhappily  styled  fiction  ;  for  to  idealize  is  to  realize. 
Build,  we  are  told,  on  the  facts ;  apply  the  scientific 
method  strictly  and  universally  to  all  the  conduct  of 
life.  But  the  facts  are  low  !  They  are  a  history  of  the 
decline  and  fall  of  more  than  the  Roman  Empire.  What 
are  the  facts  but  cinders  and  scoriae  from  the  great  Prov 
idential  furnace  of  the  world?-  "Facts  are  stubborn 
things."  They  are  angry,  wrathful,  sensual,  swindling, 
deceitful  too.  No  ;  rather  build  on  the  principles,  mat 
ters  of  imagination.  That  it  is  all  imagination,  makes 
nothing  a  proper  subject  of  contempt ;  for  what  is 
imagination  but  the  eye  of  the  soul  to  see  on  planes 
and  in  directions  never  open  to  understanding  and 
sense?  Shall  we  apply  the  scientific  method  to  the 
American  flag  or  to  the  cross  ?  Shall  we  be  entitled  to 
no  freedom  or  religion  that  we  cannot  get  out  of  the 
microscope,  dissecting-knife,  and  crucible?  The  scien 
tific  method  was  applied  to  the  black  man,  and  he  came 
forth  an  ape,  with  some  modern  improvements  and 
some  characteristics  dropped.  Haeckel  would  apply 
the  scientific  method  to  the  German  schools,  in  the  form 
of  materialistic  evolution  for  the  basis  of  instruction ; 
but  his  elder  and  master,  Virchow,  objects.  Haeckel 
says  every  atom  of  carbon  has  a  soul,  only  without 
memory,  —  a  great  lack,  for  that  is  to  be  without 
love,  faith,  worship,  or  hope ;  and  the  burning  of  mil 
lions  of  such  souls  every  morning  in  our  grates  were 
no  cause  for  regret. 

There  is,  then,  not  only  the  scientific,  but  the  philo 
sophic  and  poetic  method.  Does  it  put  the  air  and  the 
clouds  for  the  ground?  The  Montgolfier  ascension  has 
added  to  practical  service  and  promises  useful  knowl- 


48  PRINCIPLES. 

edge  as  much  as  digging  and  delving  after  Symmes's 
hole.  Nothing  would  be  more  t3Trannical  than  logic  or 
science,  if  allowed  exclusive  sway  ;  confining  us  to  out 
ward  observation  and  inference,  what  a  prison  it  would 
build  for  the  mind  !  Nor  could  all  the  inward  psychologic 
generalizing  dispense  with  that  fresh  vision  and  living 
inspiration  which  forbid  any  final  inventor}'.  We  can 
not  take  account  of  stock  in  the  store  where,  like  so 
many  clerks,  we  are  employed.  Liberation  for  new 
enterprise  the  spirit  asks  and  gives,  and  to  material 
processes  it  must  not  be  confined.  Said  a  witty  woman 
of  her  niece's  sketches,  "  I  suppose  they  are  good  ;  they 
give  me  the  same  disagreeable  feeling  I  always  get  from 
nature."  When  external  things  are  pressed  upon  us, 
our  refuge  is  language,  letters,  literature,  as  the  child's 
escape  from  drill  and  routine  is  into  the  fairy-tale. 

But  the  main  use  of  the  imagination  is  to  promote 
morals.  It  alone  enables  us  to  take  another's  point  of 
view,  to  put  ourself  in  his  place,  and  look  out  of  his 
eyes  ;  without  doing  which,  how  can  we  obe}T  the  golden 
rule?  Jesus,  looking  at  himself  without  self-pity  out  of 
his  murderers'  eyes,  surveying  his  own  crucifixion,  not 
from  the  cross  but  the  ground,  and  begging  God's  for 
giveness  for  their  ignorance,  was  a  poet  without  writing 
verse.  "  He  was,"  says  my  pianist,  "  the  greatest  mu 
sician  that  ever  lived."  Only  a  sympathetic  imagination 
begot  such  prayers  or  sublime  assertions.  "Before 
Abraham  was  I  am."  "  He  loved  me  before  the  foun 
dation  of  the  world."  "I  and  my  Father  are  one." 
"In  this  place  is  one  greater  than  the  temple."  "I 
am  the  resurrection  and  the  life."  Homer,  Dante,  and 
Shakspeare  shrink  before  such  an  investiture  of  the 


EDUCATION.  49 

soul.  That  was  a  drama ;  the  sun  itself  a  candle  which 
the  play  was  worth. 

Before  an  educated  imagination,  cruelty  to  our  fellow- 
creatures  will  disappear.  There  is  good  business  in 
our  fisheries  on  the  Grand  Banks,  but  fishing  is  a 
detestable  sport.  Is  that  a  fine  and  well-dressed  wo 
man  I  see  baiting  her  hook  and  drawing  in  her  vic 
tim  to  bleed  with  regular  spasms  to  death?  All  her 
silks  and  gems  shall  not  persuade  me  of  her  gradua 
tion.  Cruelt}'  is  her  bracelet  and  ring.  •  Nor  are  men 
more  cultivated  in  their  savage  hunt  for  game.  The 
world  is  wax  to  spirit.  Imagination  is  our  retreat 
from  hard  fact,  —  that  staple  of  science,  under  the  axe 
of  whose  guillotine  not  only  much  that  is  false  and  su 
perstitious,  but  somewhat  noble  and  beautiful  falls. 

On  our  scale  of  faculty  the  next  mark  is  love.  But 
can  love  be  educated?  Yes,  if  it  be  more  than  a  pro 
pensity.  Men  try  in  vain,  with  poor  prospect  which 
does  not  brighten,  to  build  societ}r  on  any  opinion  of 
God,  man,  or  nature.  No  creed  is  broad  enough.  We 
must  build  on  that  yearning  toward  and  longing  for 
each  other  which  we  call  love,  and  which  many  a  brute 
may  teach.  The  horse  in  willing  obedience  and  the 
shepherd-dog  in  self- forgetting  love,  and  both  in  uncon- 
tainable  desire  to  please  and  do  what  the  master  they 
worship  wants,  are  better  Christians  than  half  the  peo 
ple  one  meets  going  to  church.  Love  slurs  the  differ 
ence,  sinks  dispute,  seeks  concord,  will  compound  and 
compromise  quarrel,  and  yield  every  point  but  honor 
and  truth.  But  is  not  this  like  having  none  of  the  back 
bone  of  which  we  are  so  conscious  and  proud?  I  fear 
that  obstinate  folk,  planting  themselves  on  their  propo- 

4 


50  PRINCIPLES. 

sitions,  sometimes  miss  the  best  uses  of  a  backbone  !  A 
backbone  is  not  a  ramrod  or  crowbar,  and  a  man  with 
the  choicest  specimen  of  it  is  not  a  granite  Bunker-hill 
monument  standing  high  or  a  dummy-engine  moving 
through  the  street.  The  spinal  column  is  not  perfect 
when  any  intervertebral  is  ossified.  It  was  made  not 
for  erectness  only,  but  to  bow  with.  Leaning  on  and 
to  one  another  as  neighbors  and  friends,  we  are  per 
sonally  strong,  and.  a  community  exists  !  Amid  censors 
and  critics,  foreign  and  domestic,  searching  for  one 
armor-joint,  and  ready  to  light  and  draw  blood  from 
each  bit  of  exposed  flesh,  ingenious  to  find  the  un 
protected  point,  foes  of  that  peace  which  is  the  mind's 
repose,  like  the  insects  that  disturb  our  natural  sleep, 
and  well  figured  by  William  Blake  in  his  .painting  of 
an  enormous  human  flea,  we  have  all  had'  experience 
of  some  piece  of  mortal  goodness,  most  likely  in  a 
woman's  shape,  —  some  dear  sister,  some  living  and 
blessed  sacrifice  in  a  mate  or  aunt,  —  by  her  presence 
dispersing  thoughts  of  suicide,  restoring  us  from  despair, 
refreshing  us  for  duty,  and  convincing,  us,  beyond  all 
arguments  in  the  schools,  of  the  being  of  God.  There 
is  a  light  in  some  human  eyes  that  reveals  him,  and  a 
tone  of  voice  that  is  his  speech.  We  touch  him  in  the 
pressure  of  a  hand !  All  may  be  ashes  to-morrow  save 
that  by  the  sister  so  expressed.  It  is  no  congenital 
gift  or  grace  of  Benevolence  large,  as  the  phrenologists 
say.  Much  pining  by  herself  for  the  sympathy  which 
the  lady,  or  bread-giver,  affords,  and  sore  heart-break 
for  lack  of  good  cheer,  have  gone  for  savory  ingredients 
into  the  spiritual  bill  of  fare,  and  spread  that  diviner 
board.  She  invites  us  to  what  at  some  weU-remem- 


EDUCATION. 

bered  period  of  her  life  she  never  got, 
full  value  of,  and  means  that  nobody  in  her  circle,  if 
she  can  help  it,  shall  want.  We  speak  of  the  God-man  ; 
she  is  the  God-woman,  and  that  particular  Virgin  Mary 
is  the  one  I  would  have  the  prayers  of,  atfd  myself 
worship  as  part  of  Deity,  even  that  essence  which  out 
ward  nature  is  not  moral  enough  to  disclose.  But  can 
this  quality  be  taught  in  any  academy?  We  do  not 
desire  a  professor  of  the  heart.  But  if  the  mercy  be 
left  out  of  the  curriculum,  if  the  old  sacrifice  be  not 
repeated  as  a  daily  offering,  and  if  what,  when  over- 
demonstrative,  we  laugh  at  as  sentiment  be  not  every 
where  latent  and  implied  as  a  magnetism  that  animates 
and  unites,  all  the  expert  schooling  is  vanity  and 
naught.  •  \ 

The  affections  may  be  unfolded ;  but  is  there  any 
training  of  the  will,  or  indeed  is  there  any  will  to  train  ? 
What  shall  the  power  be  called  that  binds  and  wields 
all  the  rest,  that  enables  the  man  to  fix  his  object  and 
repeat  his  blows,  and  persevere  to  the  end  in  his  aim, 
and  fling  himself — the  most  resistless  and  effectual 
catapult  —  against  intrenched  wrong?  Is  the  soul,  as 
a  science  spurious  to  some  of  us  would  hint,  only  an 
automaton,  like  Mr.  Huxley's  frog,  that,  with  the  slow 
turning  of  the  wrist,  crept  as  slowly  from  the  palm  to 
the  back  of  Mr.  Huxley's  hand  ?  A  little  more  weight 
of  determining,  from  a  motive  without  determination  in 
one  scale  or  the  other,  does  it  make  Richard  by  turn  in 
the  lists  the  black  sluggard  or  to  the  Saracens  the  all- 
dreaded  knight?  Did  circumstances  make  Cromwell, 
whose  portrait  tells  us  he  had  made  up  his  mind? 
Did  the  stirring  and  piping  times  with  the  mother,  as 


52  PRINCIPLES. 

she  was  about  to  become,  cause  Napoleon  to  be  rather 
the  child  of  Revolution  than  her  own?  and  did  an  acci 
dental  confluence  of  agitated  particles  produce  thus  the 
mightiest  modern  force  ?  I  must  leave  the  debate  be 
tween  the  Necessarians  and  the  dictionary,  —  which 
contains  will  and  its  equivalents  in  all  tongues,  —  or 
rather  between  them  and  the  Maker  of  all,  if  language 
be,  like  its  organs,  divinely  produced,  only  suggesting 
that  it  concerns  the  credit  of  our  seminaries  of  learn 
ing  to  turn  out  doers  as  well  as  scholars  with  their 
premature  baldness,  untimely  spectacles,  indecisive 
characters,  and  incompetent  limbs.  We  have  the  kin 
dergarten,  which  owns  the  active  and  executive  in  us ; 
let  us  have  menschengarten,  too. 

What  we  do  well  in  this  world  we  must  'do,  as  the 
shipmaster  bids  his  crew,  with  a  will.  Deeper  than  this 
ego-note  of  a  separate  self  is  the  wonderful  ME,  deriv 
ing  from  which  rids  us  of  our  individualism,  —  it  being 
not  ourselves,  but  our  self.  Our  selves  are  doomed  to 
perdition.  They  are  fugitive  slaves  that  find  no  rest 
or  home.  Our  Self  is  the  Eternal,  whom  we  adore  and 
serve.  When  you  touch  my  body  I  say,  as  did  the 
Lord  respecting  the  woman,  "Who  touched  me?"  be 
cause  my  will  possesses  and  unifies  every  fibre  and 
nerve  of  the  moral  property  I  am  trustee  of  and  must 
account  for  to  my  and  your  self. 

In  this  schedule  of  education  the  fact  of  sex,  bisecting 
our  constitution,  must  not  be  overlooked.  Man  has 
more  brain  than  woman,  but  also  more  body  and  beard  ; 
and  woman  has  more  fineness,  if  less  strength.  She  is 
more  angel,  and  he  more  animal.  Proportion  and  qual 
ity  are  the  main  things ;  and  if  many  a  woman  has 


EDUCATION.  53 

desired  to  be  a  man,  and  no  man  to  be  a  woman,  it  is 
that  our  sisters  have  more  love  and  respect,  and  think 
too  well  of  us,  while  we  have  not  done  justice  to  them. 
Yet  from  their  inspiration  and  society  we  get  more  than 
from  all  the  pictures  and  books.  Is  any  power  on  the 
list  left  out  of  their  frame  ;  or  is  one  missing  from  the 
chest  of  tools  God  gives  us  to  sharpen  and  use  ?  It  is 
the  stigma  of  our  relation  to  them  thus  far,  and  flagrant 
proof  of  wrong  in  the  past,  that  even  a  common  moral 
standard  has  not  been  allowed.  A  man's  honor  and  a 
woman's  have  not  meant  the  same  thing.  Purity  has 
not  been  considered  a  virtue  equally  binding  on  him ; 
nor,  by  the  code  of  custom  in  some  quarters,  is  truth  as 
strictly  required  of  her,  but  cunning  or  concealment 
suffered  as  a  weapon  in  default  of  force,  as  some  beasts 
defend  themselves  with  tooth,  claw,  and  horn,  and 
others,  in  their  weakness,  —  such  as  the  fox,  hare,  and 
mole,  —  with  craft,  flight,  and  burrowing.  The  author 
of  that  interesting  story,  ' '  Far  from  the  Madding 
Crowd,"  says,  no  woman  but  would  lie  for  her  lover, 
to  protect  him  on  occasion  of  need.  I  have  inquired 
in  successive  companies  of  women,  and  been  uniformly 
assured  it  is  so.  But  shall  the  scale  of  right  be  shaken 
and  changed  by  sex,  and  virtue  not  be  virtue,  the  very 
same  on  both  sides  and  in  either  part  of  that  one  image 
of  God  which  it  takes  man  and  woman  together  to 
make  ?  Whatever,  with  him  or  with  her,  the  variations 
and  derelictions  may  have  been,  and  however  winked 
at,  3'et  in  the  coming  man  and  the  coming  woman  we 
swear  these  diversities  and  contradictions  of  a  double 
scale  shall  not  continue  to  exist;  but  rectitude,  sanc 
tity,  and  veracity  be  the  same  with  both  as  in  God ! 


54  PKINCIPLES. 

If  there  be  deference,  let  it  be  from  him,  the  mightier 
mate.  It  was  the  supreme  charm  in  Abraham  Lincoln, 
and  one  thing  fitting  him  to  be  the  patient  and  provident 
President  of  the  quarrelling  United  States,  that  he  could 
endure  injury  in  private  without  sign  or  sound  of  com 
plaint.  What  a  shepherd  that  calm,  noble,  all-enduring, 
unirritated,  and  high-uplifted  head  became  to  our  huge, 
straying,  bellowing,  and  recalcitrating  flock  !  Can  you, 
without  resentment,  let  your  hair  be  pulled,  your  flesh 
beaten  or  bruised?  You  are  qualified  for  office. 

Education  in  every  branch  not  for  the  other  sex? 
In  what  line  have  not  their  laurels,  while  men  talk  of 
spurs,  been  already  won?  Who  are  among  the  great 
modern  singers  but  Lind  and  Sontag,  and  chief  actors 
but  Rachel  and  Bernhardt  ?  George  Sand  and  George 
Eliot  are  by  some  judges  put  on  a  level  with  Balzac  and 
Scott.  In  the  arts  of  painting  and  sculpture  the  promise 
in  this  country  is  with  young  womanhood,  and  the  per 
formance  as  well.  In  eloquence  there  are  womanly 
patterns  for  preachers  and  lecturers  to  admire.  In  the 
theory  and  practice  of  medicine  and  surgery,  unless  you 
pick  with  care  your  male  combatants,  some  women  will 
bear  off  the  palm.  Woman's  sphere  is  a  hemisphere, 
half  of  man's  ;  and  no  collegiate  or  other  culture  which 
she  asks  should  be  denied. 

If  education  take  in  all  qualities,  both  mystic  and 
athlete,  in  its  span,  and  a  retiring  of  the  agitator  in 
favor  of  the  educator  be  the  millennial  sign,  who  is  the 
educator  but  the  one  in  whom  all  the  powers  are  trained  ? 
None  can  teach  but  the  taught.  The  single  point  of 
religion  raises  doubt,  as  of  a  kingdom  to  pass  away. 
Is  religion  then,  as  Shelley  said,  a  curse?  But  the 


EDUCATION.  55 

facult}T  is  intrinsic  and  universal.  Without  its  exercise 
and  activity  we  have  but  the  moiety  of  a  man.  It 
were  a  pseudo-radicalism  to  consider  it  a  specialty  of 
each  individual  instead  of  a  common  property,  or  that 
it  can  be  parcelled  out  among  sects,  more  than  the  sun, 
rain,  and  air ;  it  being  a  spirit  devoid  of  which  any 
specimen  of  human  nature  is  more  defective  than  one 
born  or  become  deaf  or  blind.  In  our  civil  war  it  was 
held  a  fatal  objection  to  disunion  that  the  Mississippi 
River  could  not  be  divided.  Religion  is  the  Mississippi 
of  the  soul.  It  is  water  of  life  for  a  country  and  for  the 
world.  Unbelief  springs  from  the  notion  that  it  can  be 
monopolized  by  denominations  or  spent  in  forms.  But 
the  more  one  has  of  it,  the  less  possible  is  it  for  him  to 
be  strictl}'  Orthodox,  rigidly  Episcopalian,  a  bigoted 
Catholic,  tame  Liberal,  or  Free  Religious  in  the  sense 
of  putting  freedom  from  it  for  freedom  in  it.  For  your 
articles,  Unitarian  or  Trinitarian,  I  care  not ;  but  a 
reverent  Romanist  rather  than  an  irreverent  Protestant 
should  have  my  child  in  his  hands.  The  man  —  for 
such  a  woman  I  never  knew  —  who  stands  not  lowly  and 
awe-struck  in  this  wonderful  world ;  who  has  got  over 
or  never  had  any  surprise  in  being  here ;  who  laughs 
at  human  pretension  to  the  divine  breath,  and  makes 
the  elements  not  our  servants  but  the  ground  of  our 
being,  alike  our  womb  and  receiving  tomb,  and  construes 
existence  as  no  share  of  infinity,  but  the  toy  and  trifle 
of  a  day ;  or,  in  mood  more  sombre,  however  sincere, 
bows  his  neck  to  fate  as  an  officer  and  annihilator  to 
execute  the  sentence  of  the  law,  abjuring  the  Father,  by 
Pagan  and  Christian  adored,  —  can  have  no  lot  in  that 
liberal  education  which  would  be  a  misnomer  without 


56  PKINCIPLES. 

the  central  love.  Leaving  out  that,  your  physical  sci 
ences  are  but  grave-clothes,  and  the  metaphysical,  as 
the  Bethel  minister  said,  u  fire-flies  in  the  swamp,  — 
flash,  flash,  and  all  dark  again.'* 

But  our  feeling  of  the  measureless  and  all-measuring 
cannot  be  quenched.  We  have  motive  and  courage  to 
our  task  if  we  develop  what  time  cannot  devour.  Lo  ! 
how  the  germs  wait  to  be  quickened  in  the  youthful 
breast,  however  weeds  have  the  start  and  get  ahead !  I 
have  been  disheartened  by  the  thrifty  thistle  and  bull- 
brier  in  my  field.  But  cutting  with  scythe  the  hollow 
stems  of  the  first,  ere  the  wind  wafts  the  downy  seed, 
lets  in  the  rain  to  rot  the  roots ;  and  clearing  with  a 
hedge-bill  the  wiry  brambles  of  the  last  permits  oak  and 
sassafras  to  spring  up  in  their  place.  I  have  the  delight 
to  see  the  vegetable  enemies  vanish,  like  bears  and 
wolves,  before  a  better  progen}^  and  growth.  The 
fittest  in  or  out  of  us,  O  Mr.  Darwin,  will  survive,  not 
by  a  material  or  mechanical  law,  but  with  help  and  b}T 
the  will  to  redeem  the  soil  of  nature  and  the  mind,  —  to 
drain,  plough,  harrow,  plant,  prune,  check  the  cater 
pillars,  and  scare  the  crows.  Agriculture  is  a  cipher 
for  spirit-culture ;  and  freedom,  though  blood-bought, 
is  worthless  without  fruit.  Freedom  is  room  for  virtue, 
a  way  to  truth,  door  of  the  temple,  porch  of  the  heaven 
of  love ;  yet  let  freedom  go  to  the  winds  if  it  be  not 
that !  We  have  freedom  enough,  and  enough  of  nothing 
else.  The  clamor  for  it  is  a  baby-cry.  Would  you 
have  it  for  its  own  sake?  Then  it  is  your  idol,  not 
your  God. 

Therefore  the  educator  must  distinguish  between 
evil  and  good.  The  tiller  of  the  land  is  no  optimist 


EDUCATION.  57 

to  put  brambles  and  deadly  nightshade  on  a  level  with 
corn  and  wheat.  If  the  yellow  wax-wood  and  white- 
weed  are  among  the  quarter  of  a  million  of  plants  whose 
"uses  have  not  been  discovered,"  the  farmer,  despite 
such  transcendental  notion,  thinks  extermination  the  best 
service,  nevertheless,  to  which  they  can  be  put,  and 
discredits  their  potential  virtue  in  hating  their  actual 
vice ;  and  the  moral  cultivator  cannot  regard  drunken 
ness,  adulter}',  lying,  and  cheating  as  materials  of  good 
ness,  a  way  to  heaven  or  means  of  grace.  No,  they 
are  at  least  and  at  best  but  lost  ground !  The  thorns 
and  the  apple-peru  occupy  room,  and  suck  up  the  juices 
of  the  soil  as  thoroughly  as  the  lily  and  the  rose ;  and 
human  dissipation  turns  to  waste  the  territory  that 
might  abound  in  beauty  and  fruit. 

No  doubt  we  learn  from  our  sins  ;  for  there  is  naught 
God  cannot  get  somewhat  out  of  for  our  improvement. 
But  it  is  a  false  notion  that  without  the  negative  the 
positive  cannot  be  taught.  Must  love  go  to  school  to 
hatred,  and  shall  falsehood  be  the  instructor  of  truth? 
From  what  deception  did  the  faithfulness,  and  from 
what  malignity  did  the  beneficence,  of  the  Deity  come? 
Experience  of  transgression  is  but  the  second  or  third 
best,  rather  the  worst  way  by  which  obedience  can  be 
reached.  "  In  all  these  hard  times,"  said  the  preacher, 
' '  the  wages  of  iniquity  have  not  fallen  a  jot ; "  and 
those  wages  are  misery  and  want,  postponement  and 
delay,  bitter  reflection  and  cautery  of  hell-fire. 

Let  us  arrest  the  days  for  their  dues  to  us,  and  seize 
the  angel's  blessing  from  every  one.  We  are  on  the 
sea  of  life  which  they  make  ;  let  us  not  suffer  them  to 
slip  as  waves  under  the  boat  which  they  ought  to  bear 


58  PRINCIPLES. 

on,  nor  gliding  and  treacherous  to  drift  us  upon  the 
rocks.  Let  us  trim  our  sail  to  calm  or  storm,  and  be 
ready  for  the  gale  while  in  halcyon  weather  we  court 
and  catch  the  breeze.  Surveying  the  smooth  and  smil 
ing  main,  a  shipmaster,  who  had  suffered  losses  on  the 
deep,  said  with  bitter  jest  to  the  sea,  "You  want,  do 
you,  another  cargo  of  figs?"  Let  us  have  a  freight  and 
bark  that  cannot  be  cast  away. 

Much  is  said  of  the  waste  of  means  and  life  in  empty 
sloth  of  the  non-producers,  in  flame  of  rum  that  goes 
down,  and  smoke  of  tobacco  that  goes  out ;  but  all  these 
are  leaks  and  ruins  of  the  uneducated  or  miseducated 
man,  of  the  drone,  or  the  slave  bound  to  his  cup  or 
hoisted  on  the  end  of  his  pipe  or  cigar.  He  is  not 
quite  educated  yet.  His  habits  are  not  accomplish 
ments.  Vulgar  boys  can  imitate  them  all.  They  han 
ker  after  his  dregs  and  drippings,  and  go  round  picking 
up  the  stumps  he  throws  away,  as  he  corrupts  the  rising 
generation  with  his  mature  vice.  A  mechanist  said, 
Niagara  could  turn  all  the  machinery  of  the  world ;  but 
what  a  cataract  of  intellectual  power  runs  to  nothing  from 
those  indulged  and  injurious  appetites,  which  education 
would  prevent  or  cure  !  As  the  Greek  sage  said,  "I  am 
temperate  because  I  follow  my  desires."  Let  us  live  close 
to  spirit,  and  to  its  offspring,  nature  !  That  is  a  teacher 
holy  and  wise,  and  by  a  process  deeper  than  mechanism 
or  chemist^  it  keeps  the  world  clean,  taking  up  every 
atom  of  waste  or  filth  into  fruit  and  beauty ;  from  the 
mud  bringing  the  pond-lily,  making  drain-pipes  of  the 
air  and  sea,  setting  man  an  example  to  utilize  the  ord 
ure  and  offscouring  of  great  cities,  till  marsh  and  desert 
blossom  as  the  rose,  and  orchards  and  vineyards  dis- 


EDUCATION.  59 

place  the  brier  and  the  bog.  Let  us  imitate  her  growth 
and  newness,  her  repentance  and  reform,  perceiving 
that  no  substance  of  mind  or  matter  is  evil,  and  that 
only  by  misdirection  and  excess  we  sin.  Our  naughti 
ness  is  our  nothingness,  and  our  being  is  the  amount 
of  our  virtue  and  joy. 

To  educators  with  such  aims,  all-hail !  How  infec 
tious  with  youth  is  every  sort  of  quality  in  the  elder  and 
guide  !  What  mental  photographs  unfading  remain  of 
those  Bowdoin  officers  at  whose  feet  I  sat,  —  Cleave- 
land  with  his  zeal  over  human  skeletons,  and  minerals, 
the  earth's  bones  ;  Packard's  glow  at  the  Greek  roots  ; 
Smythe's  ardor  for  mathematical  theorems  at  the  black 
board  ;  Upham's  meekness,  more  impressive  than  his 
expertness  in  the  Latin  tongue,  —  Upham  the  mystic 
and  lover  of  peace,  who,  when  Fort  Sumter  was  under 
fire,  told  the  young  men  consulting  him  he  had  not 
deserted  his  principles,  but,  if  they  must  fight,  they 
would  never  have  a  better  chance  !  These  men's  souls 
did  for  the  successive  classes  in  their  charge  more  than 
all  their  understanding  and  acquirement.  They  were 
unconscious  of  their  best. 

But  no  amount  of  special  or  universal  information, 
though  one  had  encyclopaedias  by  heart,  will  fit  one  for 
an  educator  without  that  knowledge  of  human  nature 
which  makes  him,  if  not  a  divine,  yet  a  diviner,  with  a 
divining-rod  for  the  springs  in  the  scholar's  mind,  a 
true  fortune-teller,  from  traits  and  for  destinies  deeper 
than  the  flesh.  Custom-house  appraisers,  engine  in 
spectors,  sealers  of  weights  and  measures,  calculators 
of  steam  and  of  water-power,  should  be  no  better 
versed  than  he  with  the  stuff  he  is  to  judge  of.  He 


60  PRINCIPLES. 

should  be  a  discoverer  of  inclination,  a  magnet  of  enthu 
siasm  and  curiosity,  a  detective  of  secret  inclining  or 
indisposition,  a  tempter  of  talent,  and  justifier  and  ful- 
filler  of  the  type  every  soul  is  born  with,  to  make  the 
best  and  most  of  it,  revealing  to  the  student — what  so 
often  he  is  most  ignorant  of  —  himself.  Louis  Agassiz 
put  his  point  strongly,  that  every  pupil  should  have 
an  instructor  all  alone.  Several  in  a  class  may  com 
pete  with  and  complement  each  other;  yet  how  it 
concerns  the  commonwealth,  more  than  its  mines  and 
quarries,  that  riches  of  individual  genius  be  not  hid ! 
You  influence  and  unfold  others  less  by  what  you  know 
and  say  than  by  what  you  are,  less  by  the  argument 
which  makes  people  remark  what  a  good  law}-er  3-011 
would  have  been  than  by  the  worthy  act ;  and  the  act 
reacts  on  the  temper  to  confirm  and  expand.  The 
historian  says  that  by  the  terrible  French  and  English 
wars  in  the  Low  Countries  the  foreheads  were  flat 
tened  and  the  occiputs  bulged.  What  a  sober  lesson 
we  get  from  the  fact  of  mutual  likeness  between  those 
who  live  long  together !  This  common  growth  of  men 
and  women  unawares  comes  not  of  talk,  more  than  do 
plants  or  vegetables  in  a  bed.  Through  your  silence 
your  disposition  radiates,  and  your  affection  descends 
like  the  rain.  After  all  your  reasoning  and  remon 
strance,  your  patience,  or  the  stillness  you  retreat  to, 
works  on  your  pupil  or  your  child  or  any  mate  more 
than  your  nice  discrimination  or  eloquence,  so  abundant 
and  comparatively  cheap.  The  stars  do  not  expostu 
late  with  the  comets  which  they  draw !  The  college 
boys  tell  the  truth  to  the  professor  and  dear  pastor  who 
is  their  friend,  but  hate  spies  and  informers,  and  meet 


EDUCATION.  61 

trick  with  trick.  How  contagious  is  deceit,  a  game 
that  will  never  lack  partners  on  either  side  !  In  a  cer 
tain  institution,  near  fifty  years  ago,  two  students  were 
out  in  the  yard  in  the  edge  of  the  evening,  tr}Ting  to 
fix  the  places  of  the  constellations  with  the  help  of  a 
celestial  globe.  One  of  the  Faculty  made  upon  them  a 
stealthy  descent.  Seeing  him  approach,  and  at  once 
perceiving  his  suspicion  of  a  bonfire,  then  a  favorite 
amusement  with  the  undergraduates,  they  maliciously 
so  handled  their  lamp  as  to  fetch  him  rapidly  to  the 
spot.  Fancy  his  disappointment,  mortification,  and  dis 
comfiture,  in  the  full  volley  of  his  expected  discover}7  of 
their  crime,  when  they  presented  only  their  innocent 
and  quietly  upturned  survey  of  the  heavens  to  his  aston 
ished  gaze !  With  an  involuntar}7  exclamation  of  dis 
gust  at  himself,  if  not  admiration  of  them,  and  a  doubt 
in  their  minds  whether  his  satisfaction  might  not  have 
been  greater  to  have  found  them  in  fault,  he  withdrew. 
Let  the  teacher  never  set  a  snare !  He  may  catch  or 
be  caught.  To  educate  in  lying  he  is  sure. 

Education  is  liberation  from  narrowness.  Some  ex 
clusive  notion  of  intelligence  is  the  lure  of  every  voca 
tion.  I  have  known  one  who  thought  painting  alone 
supremely  worthy  of  a  man.  Simon  Stylites  judged,  it 
was  to  pray.  How  often  preaching  the  gospel  to  pre 
pare  for  another  world  is  called  the  only  proper  business 
of  this  !  With  many,  philanthropy  swallows  up  other 
pursuits.  But  natural  science  has  cut  so  wide  a  swath 
in  our  day,  and  mowed  down  so  many  superstitions, 
that,  like  kings  planting  their  flags  on  new  shores,  and 
claiming  continents  for  their  own,  it  would  cut  off  all 
rivals,  and  assert  over  the  whole  planet  eminent  do- 


62  PKINCIPLES. 

main,  as  if  dissection  of  the  globe  and  its  contents 
were  the  royal  avenue  to  truth.  Is  the  structure  of 
things  the  single  subject  of  inquiry,  and  is  appearance 
all  there  is  of  reality  ? 

Education  implies  personality,  and  that  our  powers 
do  not  evolve  by  a  law  apart  from  our  own  and  others' 
will.  In  the  crude  substance  of  our  nature,  some  things 
of  more  worth  are  to  be  brought  out,  the  animal  left, 
the  man  or  angel  delivered ;  and  this  under  some  supe 
rior  or  supernatural  lead.  As  we  extricate  mineral, 
metal,  or  gem  from  the  earth's  bowels,  and  prize  it 
above  gravel  or  dirt,  as  one  tree,  oak,  or  elm  is  chosen 
and  cherished  more  than  another,  a  poplar  or  birch,  — so 
we  have  comparative  valuation  of  human  traits.  Every 
religion  is  from  some  prophet,  every  government  has  a 
founder,  forms  of  society  have  their  fathers,  and  in 
structors  are  indispensable  to  schools. 

Education  must  not  leave  the  bod}7  out.  Is  he  edu 
cated  who,  like  a  clown  that  sits  for  a  picture  or  enters 
fine  company,  knows  not  what  to  do  with  his  hands  — 
"  these  pickers  and  stealers,"  as  the  poet  calls  them  — 
but  to  pick  and  steal,  whose  mouth  has  cunning  and  his 
right  hand  none  ?  The  man  that  can  swim,  resuscitate 
a  drowning  person,  hoist  a  sail,  hoe  corn,  kill  potato- 
bugs,  stop  a  runaway  horse,  confront  a  burglar,  carry 
an  invalid,  make  or  mend,  has  a  culture,  not  of  muscle 
onl}7  but  of  brain  and  mind,  of  which  the  do-nothing's  im 
potent  spine  and  fingers  are  devoid.  He  may  be  learned, 
but  he  is  not  trained.  What  a  nuisance  he  is  in  a  civil 
crisis,  incompetent  defender  of  the  injured,  and  cipher 
in  a  mob !  He  may  speak  the  vernacular  correctly,  and 
understand  many  a  dialect ;  but  what  save  paper-cur- 


EDUCATION.  Od 

rency,  irredeemable  greenbacks,  are  his  words  not 
backed  up  with  deeds? 

Some  debate  has  arisen  over  a  recent  proposition  that 
the  only  essential  point  in  a  lady's  or  gentleman's  edu 
cation  is  to  speak  well  the  mother- tongue.  The  qualifi 
cation  of  such  a  statement  is,  that  it  is  as  indispensable 
to  do  as  to  speak.  "  Beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  be 
ing  ;"  but  "handsome  is  that  handsome  does."  In  any 
author  is  somewhat  more  important  than  his  art,  namel}', 
the  will,  in  whatever  word  or  deed,  to  serve  God  and 
his  fellow-men  in  any  task  to  which  hand  or  tongue  be 
yond  or  within  his  calling  ma}T  be  lent. 

We  Americans  are  too  haughty,  too  sure  of  our  pre 
eminence  among  the  nations,  and  too  confident  in  our 
destiny,  to  own  our  deficiencies  or  repent  of  our  sins. 
We  look  at  the  melancholy  wrecks  of  fortune  caused  by 
ignorance  and  transgression,  and  only  a  few  monitors 
faintty  whisper  their  regrets  !  We  consider  as  fate  what 
was  choice.  The  dishonest  man  was  our  neighbor,  and 
we  are  tender,  and  hesitate  to  point  the  moral  for  the 
young  to  take  note  of;  while  Scandal  with  her  busy 
tongue  and  Rumor  with  her  thousand  trumpets  can  noise 
abroad  matters  of  taste  and  social  relations  of  minor 
consequence,  tithing  the  mint,  anise,  and  cummin  of 
propriety,  and  overlooking  the  weighty  presumptions 
of  the  law.  But  let  us  understand,  appeals  to  con 
science  fail,  unless  indorsed  by  development  of  the 
mind.  A  true  biography  would  tell  the  story  of  men 
who  have  fallen  to  disgrace  and  poverty  from  high 
places  of  riches  and  power,  because  they  refused  to 
learn,  and  thought  they  were  such  wiseacres  that  they 
could  not  be  taught  by  others  in  their  own  line  of  busi- 


64  PKINCIPLES. 

ness,  and  refused  to  think  there  was  in  the  community 
any  such  thing  as  common-sense  to  which  they  should 
open  their  eyes  and  ears,  but  wore  blinders  of  pride 
and  conceit,  and  could  look  only  in  one  way.  Nothing 
lives  but  can  teach  us  something,  —  a  dog  by  his  quicker 
scent  or  sight ;  a  horse  by  his  hearing  or  by  an  instinct 
of  danger,  making  him  turn  in  the  right  direction,  or 
stop,  in  a  dark  night,  on  the  brink  which  we  behold 
not. 

A  true  history  of  our  own  country  would  calculate  losses 
incurred  from  want  of  that  generous  culture  which  in 
spires  good  judgment  even  in  worldly  affairs.  Avarice 
alone  does  not  accumulate,  nor  acquisitiveness  acquire, 
nor  haste  to  be  rich  enrich.  Look  at  the  enormous 
squandering  on  premature  schemes  of  roads  and  mills, 
for  which  there  was  no  need  or  use  proportioned  to  the 
outlay  of  means  !  We  could  have  nursed  the  liberal 
arts  which  we  have  so  neglected,  and  saved  our  super 
fluous  energy,  so  injuriously  spent,  and  had  more  prop 
erty.  Had  we  educated  the  affections,  which  moderate 
the  propensities,  we  should  have,  for  beauty  and  bounty 
and  all  charity,  the  vast  sums  lavished  in  the  burning 
of  tobacco  and  the  making  of  alcohol  to  burn  us.  An 
uneducated  people  will  not,  by  force  of  prohibitory 
laws,  or  of  societies  and  agents  armed  with  statutes 
against  the  circulation  of  indecent  books  and  prints,  be 
either  temperate  or  pure.  An  uneducated  nation  will 
not,  if  it  be  strong,  keep  the  peace,  but  vent  its  animal 
passions  ;  like  England,  still  hinting  a  name  half  brute 
and  half  man,  as  she  rushes  to  butt  and  gore  in  Afghan 
istan  and  Zulu-land,  with  reasons  of  policy,  and  for  ex 
cuse  the  rectifying  of  frontiers  thousands  of  miles  away. 


EDUCATION.  65 

An  uneducated  man  will  not  be  a  better  soldier  or  civil 
ian,  nor  an  uneducated  woman  a  nobler  wife  or  mother ; 
and  the  animals  will  be  too  truly  our  next  of  blood,  and 
the  angels  our  far-away  cousins  and  unrecognized  rela 
tions,  a  sort  of  pictures  and  figures  of  speech,  while  we 
remain,  as  we  are,  an  uneducated  race. 


66  PBINCIPLES. 


III. 

« 

DEITY. 

IF  we  have  no  logical  proof  to  offer  of  God,  it  is  be 
cause  a  derived  were  a  secondary  Divinity,  and  so 
the  proposition  were  prior  to  him  from  which  he  could 
be  inferred,  as  Saturn  preceded  Jupiter  in  the  heathen 
myth.  But  what  we  worship  must  be  as  much  in  the 
premise  as  in  the  conclusion,  Alpha  as  well  as  Omega. 
His  case  would  go  by  default,  could  we  bring  him  into 
court.  He  is  not,  if  he  be  left  at  the  mere}7  of  our  argu 
ment.  If  he  exist  not  in  self-demonstration  to  the  soul 
humbly  owning  itself  as  his  offspring,  he  will  never  ap 
pear  in  the  world.  Constellation  or  protoplasm,  upper 
or  under  firmament,  will  be  searched  for  him  in  vain. 
Only  to  some  hints  of  his  presence  do  we  venture  to 
point. 

Whether  we  affirm  or  deny  him,  we  cannot  get  rid  of 
his  idea,  which  the  atheist  assumes  while  he  contradicts. 

"  Himself  from  God  he  could  not  free," 

is  true  not  alone  of  the  cathedral-builder,  but  of  the 
hod-carrier,  and  even  of  the  profane  swearer  that  takes 
the  holy  name  in  vain.  "O  God,  though  he  believed 
not  in  thy  being,  he  obe}'ed  thy  law,"  pra}'ed  Theodore 
Parker  beside  a  professed  atheist's  bier.  Must  not  a 
lawgiver  for  the  conscience  have  been  needful,  had  the 


DEITY.  67 

atheist  anatyzed  his  thought  ?  He  cannot  be  seen  in 
nature  with  the  naked  eye  ;  but  ' '  all  physics  lead  to  the 
sea  of  metaphysics ; "  and  of  this  question  no  denial 
will  ever  dispose.  But  we  have,  in  this  age,  such  a 
childish  pleasure  in  breaking  into  and  discovering  the 
springs  of  this  great  toy  of  the  material  world,  that  the 
physicists  have  come  to  indulge  themselves  with  holding 
the  metaphysicians  in  unmeasured  scorn.  Yet,  as  the 
philosophic  Dr.  Walker  said,  if  these  latter  are  to  be 
tried,  "  let  them  have  the  privilege,  common  to  all  Eng 
lish  blood,  of  a  jury  of  their  peers." 

It  is,  however,  the  modest  ground  of  ignorance  on 
which  the  modern  atheist  sometimes  takes  his  stand. 
We  are,  he  says,  on  board  a  vessel  whose  ports  of  en 
try  and  of  discharge  and  the  fortune  of  whose  voyage 
are  alike  unknown,  and  with  whose  commander  we  are 
unacquainted.  All  to  our  mind  is  uncertainty,  and  all 
in  fact  is  doom.  But  I  have  learned  in  crossing  the 
ocean  that  this  illustrative  commander  is  no  gossip. 
He  ma}T  be  stowed  away  in  the  cabin  or  walking  on  the 
paddle-bridge,  absent  from  sight  while  we  saunter  and 
talk  in  sunshine  and  calm,  and  awake  while  we  sleep  in 
the  tempestuous  night ;  not  communicative  of  his  plans, 
allowing  no  conversation  with  the  man  at  the  wheel, 
and  having  in  the  lower  regions,  where  the  furnace  is 
fed,  servants  as  unseen  and  taciturn  as  himself. 

Sensuous  observation  does  not  discover  God.  But 
truth  is  not  made  out  of  microscopic  particulars.  It  is 
an  order  and  connection  implying  an  ordainer  and  con 
nector.  What  were  a  stone  to  Lyell,  plant  to  Linnaeus, 
star  to  Kepler,  or  human  soul  to  Plato,  without  the 
thread  on  which  kindred  natures  are  strung?  Action, 


68  PRINCIPLES. 

however  private,  is  always  in  actual  concert,  and  debate 
is  in  committee ;  a  "  third  party "  appointing  the  first 
and  second  is  taken  for  granted  to  decide  in  any  differ 
ence  of  judgment  or  plan.  Inspiration  is  a  reality,  how 
ever  stated  ill.  Did  any  flesh  and  blood  ever  exist  more 
truly  than  his  daimon  to  Socrates,  Jehovah  to  Moses, 
or  the  Father  to  Jesus,  or  than  does  a  Holy  Spirit  to  him 
b}'  whom  it  is  asked?  The  mountain  itself  is  a  mirage, 
and  the  sea  but  a  vapor,  and  the  wind  a  figure  of  speech 
for  this  ghostly  force.  We  catch  a  whiff  of  its  breeze. 
What  the  prophets  blazed  with  is  a  spark  in  us  or  latent 
heat,  from  which  comes  many  a  despatch  for  our  con 
science,  pallor  on  our  face,  and  quiver  to  our  nerves. 
Let  me  note  in  several  directions  signs  of  the  super 
human  in  the  lawful  and  ordinary  working  of  the  human 
mind. 

First,  what  we  in  a  true  metaphor  call  the  thirst  for 
information.  Wiry  or  whence  this  curiosity  insatiate, 
whose  eagerness  a  dog's  barking  at  the  hole  in  the  wall 
poorly  signifies,  whose  game  in  the  secret  of  the  uni 
verse  is  never  reached,  yet  whose  pursuit  never  stops  ? 
How  delightfully  we  are  tantalized  and  put  off!  We 
want  to  know,  and  never  know  enough.  For  every 
question  closed,  like  the  old  hydra-heads,  two  open, — 
about  health  and  disease,  beasts,  insanity,  organic  and 
inorganic  life.  I  heard  a  mathematician  say,  "We  must 
get  to  the  constellation  Hercules  some  time  for  a  better 
observation  of  what  is  now  hid  from  us  in  the  star-strewn 
space."  Where  or  whence  the  motive  for  such  search 
but  in  a  supreme  intelligence  and  its  counterpart  of  a 
boundless  field?  We  are  little  children  looking  around 
wistfully  in  our  father's  factory,  who  timidly  venture  to 


DEITY.  69 

handle  some  of  his  tools.  We  are  mocked  and  cruelly 
handled  ourselves  if  driven  out,  or  told  we  can  never 
understand.  Not  only  to  investigate  but  to  love  the 
truth,  and  stand  by  it  at  all  costs  of  the  stake  or  the 
cross,  is  an  impulse  that  signifies  the  Deity  from  which 
it  comes. 

In  devotion  to  the  right  is  evinced  the  same  infinite 
force.  Does  not  the  cashier,  refusing  to  unlock  the 
safe,  and  choosing  to  die  rather  than  betray  his  charge, 
draw  on  an  immense  energy  beyond  any  reservoir  of 
private  will  ?  The  St.  Lawrence  River  no  more  commu 
nicates  through  a  chain  of  lakes  with  the  clouds  and 
sea  and  old  deluge  that  drowned  the  world,  than  such 
a  conscience  is  derivative  from  God.  No  utility  or  cal 
culation  can  furnish  for  it  any  gauge.  When  you  will 
find  the  end  of  the  root  of  the  tree  of  life,  and  can  lay 
your  axe  to  it  or  tear  it  out  of  the  soil  in  which  it  grows, 
then  you  can  tell  by  weight  and  measure  this  moral 
sense. 

In  love  we  also  get  be}Tond  any  Atlantic- cable  sound 
ings.  He  is  ignorant  who  doubts  pure  affection,  or 
affirms  that  our  object  is  our  own  pleasure,  twist  it  how 
we  will.  We  admit  disinterested  friendship  betwixt 
some  men ;  but  we  sink  ourselves  to  the  last  degrada 
tion  as  we  deny  it  betwixt  man  and  woman.  We  base 
our  unbelief  on  a  thousand  false  stories  of  spies  with 
whom  gossip  is  gospel,  and  we  overlook  ten  thousand 
untainted  ties.  Nothing  is  more  common  than  mutual 
faith  and  devoted  love.  A  hundred  painted  pieces  of 
flesh  and  blood  pass  in  the  panorama  of  life.  Why  on 
this  one  figure  do  my  eyes  fix,  and  why  for  it  are  my 
faculties  pledged  "  till  death  us  do  part "  ?  I  know  not. 


70  PRINCIPLES. 

God  knows.  It  is  so  only  because  he  is !  Will  one 
say  it  is  nature,  not  God?  But  nature  means  what 
is  born,  and  implies  the  principle  that  bears  and  begets. 
In  it  alone  the  one  and  universal  are  at  peace.  Matter 
is  multitude  and  a  mob  of  elements,  that  hustles  its 
votary  while  he  lives  and  will  push  him  till  he  dies.  It 
is  a  cage  which  the  soul  like  a  bird  must  escape  from 
to  soar  and  sing.  If  our  spirit  were  but  an  oaten  straw, 
it  will  make  music  when  the  Holy  Spirit  blows.  How 
ever  ingeniously  we  build  our  earthly  schemes  of  com 
fort  and  knowledge,  an  earthquake  is  coming  to  us  and 
to  all  we  hold  dear,  to  shake  the  ant-hills  we  swarm  in. 
Only  on  the  Rock  of  Ages  can  we  rest.  Materialism  is 
no  foundation,  but  a  swamp.  Some  centuries  since, 
the  magnetic  pole  diverged  from  that  of  the  earth's 
axis,  but,  unable  to  swing  beyond  a  certain  point,  it 
afterwards  began  to  return.  The  human  mind  may 
wander  from,  but  must  go  back  to  coincide  with,  the 
divine.  Christianity  is  our  best  social  mark  of  this 
celestial  inclination  away  from  all  declination  of  error 
and  declension  of  sin.  For  radical  and  free  religious 
speculation  let  there  be  room.  But  before  it  can  dis 
place  established  religion,  it  must  have  positive  elec 
tricity.  It  must  become  a  leaven  in  the  lump  of  this 
world's  dough,  turn  its  criticism  to  enthusiasm,  spread 
among  the  people,  and  plant  a  church.  Long  blowing 
among  the  ashes  and  raising  clouds  of  dust  will  not 
come  to  so  much  in  house-warming  as  one  coal  of  fire 
that  may  kindle  a  great  matter  ;  and  some  altar  of  sac 
rifice  alone  can  furnish  the  live  coal. 

But,  say  the  atheists,  there  is  no  knowledge  of  God 
in  all  this  fancy  and  faith.     What  is  knowledge  ?     If  it 


DEITY.  .     71 

be  absolute  and  complete  comprehension,  then  we  know 
nothing  of  ourselves  or  of  our  neighbors,  of  a  clod  on 
the  earth  or  of  the  oxygen  that  has  been  discovered 
in  the  sun.  But  if  knowledge  be  apprehension,  —  the 
realizing  of  subject  or  object  to  our  thought,  be  it  of 
fellow-creature  or  our  Creator,  —  then  we  know  as  cer 
tainly  as  we  are.  But  how  do  we  know?  The  scien 
tific  process  is  to  observe  facts  and  put  them  in  rows 
which  we  call  laws  ;  and  God  is  no  arrangement  or  fact, 
but  supreme  factor  prior  to  both.  Knowledge  is  not 
sensuous  alone.  It  cannot  be  so  altogether,  and  may 
not  be  so  at  all.  By  every  affection  and  power  the  pre 
hensile  soul  in  us  seizes  and  clings  to  that  which  an 
swers  to  itself,  and  whatever  it  grasps,  so  far  it  knows. 
The  eye  grasps  one  way,  and  the  ear  another.  Touch, 
taste,  and  smell  are  spies  and  informers.  But  there  is, 
beyond  their  scope,  an  imaginative,  wondering,  loving 
knowledge.  Sensible  knowledge  stops  with  the  surface, 
and  matter  is  all  surface.  But  detection  of  tendency  or 
analogy  penetrates  the  shell  to  the  kernel  of  nature. 
We  truly  call  this  divining.  It  is  genius  and  the  germ 
of  all  knowledge  that  is  deeper  than  we  have  in  common 
with  the  beasts.  It  is  tne  same  process  in  natural 
philosophers  like  Newton  and  Kepler,  and  in  pious  sages 
such  as  Thomas  a  Kempis,  Tauler,  and  Jacob  Behmen. 
If  the  former  know  nature,  the  latter  know  God.  Do 
they  only  dream  ?  But  this  phantom  or  phenomenon  of 
nature,  which  night  blots  and  morning  restores,  may  be 
illusory  and  transitory,  while  I  cannot  conceive  of  thought 
as  a  passing  show.  Sense  and  understanding  could  not 
know  or  care  to  know  aught,  were  they  insulated  from 
the  rest  of  the  mind  and  could  they  explore,  apart  from 


72  PRINCIPLES. 

any  feeling  of  trust,  any  joy  in  discovery,  any  aspiring 
to  perfection,  or  any  poetic  rounding  into  picture  of  the 
living  classes  and  kingdoms  and  the  landscape  in  which 
they  are  contained.  Have  we  knowledge  in  a  map  or 
chart,  as  by  Mercator's  projection,  or  in  the  varnished 
paper  and  plaster  of  an  artificial  globe?  But  beside  all 
of  the  planet  that  any  instrument  can  represent  or 
parchment  record,  is  there  not  a  knowledge  of  art,  not 
alone  of  form  and  color  but  what  they  mean  to  the 
mind?  Is  it  a  misnomer  to  speak  of  a  connoisseur,  or 
knower  of  pictures  and  statues,  or  of  design  in  a  sol 
diers'  monument,  a  temple,  or  tomb?  Is  there  not 
knowledge  in  that  capacity,  deeper  than  the  ear's 
curious  chambers,  by  which  deaf  Beethoven  listens  to 
choirs  in  heaven  for  the  musical  message  and  oracle  of 
sound  he  must  translate  on  earth?  Is  it  stretching 
language  to  speak  of  a  knowledge  of  the  heart?  The 
lover,  in  comparison  with  what  his  acquaintance  reaches, 
justly  counts  all  the  metaphysics  and  mathematics  but 
a  court  of  the  gentiles  and  porch  unfit  to  live  in.  How 
much  in  nature  cannot  be  reduced  to  tape-line,  cubic 
contents,  and  avoirdupois  weight,  but  transcends  the 
multiplication-table,  and  md'kes  an  emblem  of  the  shin 
ing  diagrams  in  the  evening  sky !  How  genius  always 
makes  nature  its  ladder  !  Says  Michael  Angelo  :  "  My 
eyes  greedy  of  beauty,  and  my  soul  of  its  salvation, 
have  only  this  one  virtue  of  contemplating  noble  forms 
in  order  to  mount  to  heaven."  Did  he  never  get  there 
on  those  painted  rounds  which  are  more  real  than  Elijah's 
chariot  of  fire?  A  noble  woman,  borne  up-stairs  to 
die,  and  playing  with  death  as  did  Sir  Thomas  More 
when  he  took  away  his  long  beard  from  the  executioner's 


DEITY.  73 

axe,  said,  "The  ascension  has  begun."  Was  not  her 
humor  as  good  as  a  prayer  ?  A  friend  said  to  me  of  his 
wife,  "Her  last  effort  was  a  smile."  In  communion 
with  God  we  ask  nothing.  When  people  die  well,  you 
may  read  the  liturgy  if  you  please,  but  there  is  nothing 
to  pray  for !  When  I  saw,  at  a  certain  funeral,  no 
coffin,  earth  having  already  gone  to  earth,  every  shutter 
open,  and  the  sunshine  streaming  in  on  a  cheerful  com 
pany,  while  one  could  not  tell  whether  to  condole  or 
congratulate  on  the  vanishing  of  a  saintly  soul,  I  said, 
These  people  believe  in  God!  Is  knowledge  only  of  cer 
tain  dimensions?  The  great  Florentine  sculptor  says 
to  his  friend  Marcile  Ficin :  "I  see,  by  my  thought,  in 
thy  face  what  I  cannot  relate  in  this  life  :  the  soul  still 
clothed  in  flesh  but  already  ascended  to  God."  No 
artist's  pride  in  his  profession  or  pleasure  in  any 
accomplishment  prompted  him  to  vainglorious  words. 
"Painting  or  sculpture,  at  my  hand,  cannot  suffice  to 
appease  that  divine  love  which,  in  order  to  strain  us  to 
its  embrace,  holds  open  its  two  arms  on  the  cross." 

We  are  told  to  wait  for  science  to  justify  the  idea  of 
a  God  ;  and  material  science  can  give  us  but  a  coroner's 
inquest  over  the  dead.  Another  method  that  master- 
student  used,  whose  marbles  live  while  populations  per 
ish,  and  who  hung  the  Sistine  Chapel  ceiling  with  shapes 
of  such  awful  grace.  "  Let  down  to  me,  O  Lord,  that 
chain  of  faith  which  holds  all  celestial  gifts."  So  spake 
no  nominal  saint,  or  servant  of  the  Church  or  of  the 
Pope,  whom  he  dealt  with  on  manly  terms  while  he  meted 
out  justice  alike  to  Paganism  and  Christendom  with  his 
canvas  and  stone.  "  Tried  with  good  and  bad  fortune, 
I  ask  pardon  of  God  to  myself.  Succor  with  thj-  supreme 


74  PRINCIPLES. 

pity  me,  so  near  to  death,  so  far  from  thee  !  "  Did  he, 
properly  speaking,  know  nothing  about  it?  Such  piety  is 
the  normal  and  only  genuine  knowledge  of  God.  In  it 
the  object  is  conscious  subject  too.  What  and  how  much 
can  you  intellectually  know  of  your  friend  or  mate? 
Must  you  furnish  statistics,  make  an  inventory,  and 
give  a  tabular  statement  of  their  traits?  A  rational 
judgment  may  tall}7  with  or  wait  on  your  feeling.  But 
the  essence  of  this  knowledge  is  no  computing  of  quan 
tities  or  report  of  committees.  It  is  direct  and  inalien 
able  property  of  love,  any  precise  defining  of  which 
were  laying  it  out  in  coffin  and  shroud.  Certain  dry 
dialecticians  of  sentiment  remind  us  of  the  skeletons 
suspended  by  a  string  and  turned  around  in  the  anat 
omist's  lecture-room.  When  they  speak,  we  hearken 
to  a  rattling  as  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  We 
ask,  "Can  these  dry  bones  live?"  Certainly  a  man 
reduced  to  his  logical  understanding,  with  only  its 
quarters  for  the  accommodation  of  truth,  and  without 
affection  or  adoration,  is  the  chief  augur  of  death.  He 
seems  continually  engaged  on  an  autopsy  of  himself. 
He  whom  you  can  define  as  three  persons  or  subsisten- 
cies,  or  anywise  put  into  }'our  arithmetic,  is  not  the 
living  God.  We  know  ourselves  and  one  another  not 
by  distinction  of  number  but  by  action  and  co-opera 
tion;  and,  beyond  curiosity,  co-efficiency  with  him  is 
necessary  to  know  God. 

Woman  is  supposed  to  have  less  understanding  than 
her  masculine  mate.  How  does  she  know  men  better 
than  they  do  each  other?  How  does  a  woman  discern 
a  man's  feeling  ere  he  is  quite  aware  of  it  himself;  or 
how  imagine  a  return,  but  that  love,  instead  of  being 


DEITY.  75 

blind,  is  a  searching  sagacity  and  the  quickest  wit ;  and 
she  has  more  of  it,  to  even  the  scale  against  his  argu 
ment  and  stronger  arm  ?  I  think  it  is  not  for  lack  of 
vision,  if  our  sisters  be  deceived ;  for  with  one  lifting 
of  their  lowly  ejes  they  look  us  through  !  More  loving, 
they  need  more  love  ;  and  they  are  more  loyal  too,  and 
less  able  to  imagine  that  love  should  ever  cease.  I 
have  known  men  grow  cold  in  friendship,  but  women 
never.  Others  may  have  found  them  fickle :  the  wit 
ness  of  my  experience  is  to  a  fealty  in  them  which  no 
time,  absence,  or  discouragement  could  cool  or  change. 
My  thanks  to  God  are  for  relations  with  them  in  which 
is  nothing  to  regret.  B}T  members  of  my  own  sex  I 
have  sometimes  been  cheated,  deserted,  and  deceived. 
The  woman  does  not  found  her  affection  on  facts.  Is 
material  information  needed  for  a  basis  of  the  love  of 
God?  What  did  Jesus  know  of  the  round  globe,  the 
western  hemisphere,  geologic  formations,  starry  sys 
tems,  ether,  telegraph,  telephone,  phonograph,  atoms, 
or  orbs  ?  Yet  who  from  all  this  has  learned  more  than 
did  he  of  Him?  The  sun  is  self-luminous,  and  love  is 
self-intelligent.  It  gives  no  reason,  being  its  own,  and 
needs  no  justification,  and  is  the  best  form  of  that 
knowledge  of  which  it  is  the  means  and  end.  While 
lust  blinds  the  parties  to  it,  and  makes  victims  of  them 
both,  love  imparts  that  perception  of  its  object  with 
which,  beyond  any  lynx  or  argus,  it  is  born ;  and  such 
a  sentiment  for  the  human  implies  the  divine.  Can  I 
love  not  only  kith  and  kin  and  my  own  lovers,  — which 
is  but  decent  equivalent  and  scarce  more  than  quits,  — 
but  the  man,  too,  by  whom  I  am  insulted,  gazetted,  and 
maligned?  'Tis  no  accident  or  work  of  my  will.  To 


76  PRINCIPLES. 

no  such  miracle  am  I  equal.  It  is  a  beam  of  the  sun, 
a  well  from  the  soil,  a  balm  on  the  wind.  Amazon  or 
Missouri  must  have  a  source  ;  and  from  a  spring  never 
fathomed  must  come  this  feeling  that  unselfs  the  soul, 
that  flies  to  suck  no  flower,  and  runs  to  grind  no  grist, 
and  contemplates  no  mortal  issue,  but  rests  in  its  ob 
ject-  instead  of  coasting  round  it  to  come  back.  This 
feeling  cannot  make  of  what  it  seeks  its  instrument  or 
tool.  It  inspires  and  uses  us,  and  merges  all  separate 
selves  into  that  self  of  nature  we  branch  from,  and  of 
which  space  and  time  are  but  accidents  and  modes.  It 
is  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  it  is  God  himself  in  the 
human  breast.  From  its  personality  we  cannot  part. 
Not  three  but  all  persons  are  in  it.  Impersonality  is  a 
husk,  a  negation,  and  a  void.  Who  can  live  on  denial, 
breathe  in  a  vacuum,  or  feed  with  the  swine?  To  be 
personal  is  to  be  positive,  to  draw  and  sustain. 

Once  more,  we  know  God  so  far  as  we  know  the 
truth,  which  is  infinite,  and  of  which  all  the  exact  sci 
ences  are  but  illustration  and  effect.  When  Geoffry 
St.  Hilaire,  Oken,  Cuvier,  Agassiz,  and  Darwin  detect 
in  the  lowest  creature  the  organism  of  the  highest,  or 
when  we  speak  of  correlation  of  life  and  force,  can  the 
Correlator  be  left  out?  Radical  thinkers  would  substi 
tute  truth  as  the  object  instead  of  God.  But  truth  is 
only  one  of  his  names,  and  we  know  as  much  of  him  as 
of  it.  There  are  things  the  angels  desire  to  look  into, 
but  will  never  find  out  all ;  and  there  were  no  truth 
or  God  if  they  could!  But  if  truth  be  a  relation, 
unsearchable  in  its  beginning  or  end,  then  God  is  our 
relation,  and  only  by  loving  all  our  relations  we  come 
to  know  him  and  them.  What  were  the  earth  but  a 


DEITY.  77 

receiving- tomb,  if  the  millions  of  our  race,  if  martyrs 
and  confessors,  in  sore  extremity  have  groaned  out 
their  spirits  ignorant  of  him  by  whom  they  were  re 
freshed  or  in  whose  cause  they  gave  their  life ;  the 
generations  but  withering  leaves,  melting  snow-flakes, 
or  stiffening  flies,  with  no  appeal  to  heaven  which 
the  deaf  and  dumb  firmament  did  not  mock,  while  we 
their  descendants  in  these  lees  of  time  and  ends  of  the 
earth  still  wait,  as  for  an  experiment  in  chemistry,  for 
our  ingenious  logicians  to  demonstrate  the  being  we 
may  trust ;  but,  till  the  evidence  is  all  in  to  establish 
the  divinity  or  explode  it.  the  bench  of  science  with 
judicial  decree  must  say  down,  down  to  all  aspira 
tion,  look  for  comfort,  faith  of  Socrates,  or  prayer  of 
Christ !  There  must  be  some  other  than  this  dismal  way. 
Expert  lawyers  admit  no  truth  but  such  as  can  manage 
to  get  through  the  corkscrew  of  their  cross-question. 
But  it  shines  in  at  every  window,  and  rides  on  every  ray 
which  cannot  be  too  small  to  be  the  chariot  of  a  god. 

Yet  again,  so  far  as  we  know  beauty  we  know  God ; 
and  do  we  not  know  it  in  nature  and  those  human  fea 
tures  from  which  it  beams  more  than  in  the  landscape  ? 
But  of  beauty  no  science  can  be  the  picture-frame,  talk 
learnedty  as  we  will  of  its  laws.  The  strokes  are  too 
broad,  the  form  and  color  too  vast  and  nice,  the  scale 
too  extended  on  rounds  of  land  and  sea  and  sky,  the 
touches  in  flesh  too  fine,  and  the  reaching  to  our  sensi 
bility  too  soft  and  various, — from  a  sunrise  to  the  dawn 
of  expression  on  a  human  face,  —  for  any  verbal  propo 
sitions  to  contain.  One  may  make  a  patient  and  faith 
ful  sketch  ;  but  in  laying  on  the  color  is  a  moment  of 
ecstasy.  Just  how  he  does  it  the  artist  cannot  teU.  By 


78  PRINCIPLES. 

some  live  beauty  of  holiness  he  comes  into  half-uncon 
scious  knowledge  of  being  helped.  We  say  an  orator 
or  preacher  is  assisted  when  he  surpasses  himself.  ' '  Un 
less  above  himself  he  can  erect  himself,  how  poor  a 
thing  "  is  the  artist  as  well  as  the  man ! 

We  know  God,  but  not  all  about  him.  Do  we  know 
all  about  each  other,  or  our  situation  on  this  rolling  ball, 
touching  but  at  points  the  spheres  of  our  neighbors,  as 
we  sail  in  an  offing  away  from  the  secret  of  our  own 
breasts?  Do  we  know  all  about  a  blade  of  grass,  that 
far-off  cousin  of  the  sun  and  blood  relation  of  the  rain  ? 
Huxley  and  Tyndall  are  no  more  aware  than  we  of  the 
ultimate  physiology  of  the  automatic  frog  or  undulation 
of  the  light  the}'  so  curiously  dissect  and  trace.  If  in 
no  demonstration  or  intuition,  yet  in  some  intimation, 
we  know  duty  and  immortality.  So  we  know  God. 

Furthermore,  I  know  my  duty,  and  for  anybody 
to  doubt  my  knowledge  of  it  were  the  last  insult. 
But  how?  Not  by  science,  but  conscience.  Yet  I 
know  it  as  well  and  somewhat  more  dearly  and  deeply 
than  I  do  the  composition  of  air  or  water  or  the 
constitution  —  which  science  makes  such  proud  poth 
er  about  —  of  the  sun.  Is  not  obligation  revealed 
as  clearly  as  an  acid  or  alkali,  or  as  the  solar  light 
divides  in  the  spectroscope  the  metallic  lines?  Ac 
cording  to  Immanuel  Kant,  it  reveals  an  oUiger  too. 
Faraday  served  God  by  turns  in  his  oratoiy  and  lab 
oratory,  not  confounding  their  offices,  as  he  said. 
There  are  diverse  theories  how  and  by  what  incre 
ments  grows  this  crystal  or  diamond  of  conscience  by 
which  all  the  paste  of  compromise  or  glass  of  conven 
ient  expediency  is  cut.  But  nothing  conceivable  is  finer 


DEITY.  79 

than  its  final  edge.  God,  duty,  and  immortality  are 
all  of  them  intimations,  and  we  have  their  proof  in 
their  possession.  Love  and  beauty  answer  every  ques 
tion  of  their  own  reality  or  eternity.  But,  before  they 
can  be  preached  as  doctrines,  they  must  be  experienced 
as  facts.  We  cannot  believe  these  points  till  they  are 
produced  as  lines  in  our  conscious  purpose  and  faithful 
deeds.  But  their  evidence  is  in  their  recurrence,  period 
ical  as  the  planets,  inextinguishable  as  the  morning  and 
the  evening  star.  In  denying  such  knowledge  the  can 
did  and  profound  Mr.  Spencer  already  knows  too  much. 
Why  does  he  sa}r  so  much  about  the  unknowable,  and 
qualify  it  with  the  definite  article,  and  regard  it  as  the 
background  of  all  observation,  substance  of  what  is 
manifest  and  fountain  of  that  law  which  Hooker  calls 
the  bosom  of  God?  Why  make  it  worthy  of  a  capital 
letter,  like  Him,  a  plan  from  which  all  order  is  designed 
and  pigment  of  which  all  nature  is  paint,  if,  after  as 
cribing  to  it  such  qualities  and  powers  he  is  to  deny  that 
aught  of  it  can  be  known,  and  make  the  universe  stop 
bolt  upright  in  man  with  but  a  precipice  over  which  into 
an  abyss  of  nothingness  he  is  to  plunge  ?  When,  in  an 
educational  convention,  a  long  generation  ago,  some 
gentleman  from  the  South  expressed  his  pleasure  that 
to  the  subject  of  slavery  no  allusion  had  been  made, 
Horace  Mann  replied  that  the  honorable  member  of 
that  bocty  had  already  said  too  much  !  If  the  unknow 
able  so  contradict  itself  as  to  have  all  these  mighty 
attributes  which  its  affirmers  so  innocently  assume,  it 
is  high  time,  and  the  only  safety  for  them,  to  resign 
their  professors'  chairs,  and  lecture  no  longer  on  this 
particular  subject,  but  be  quite  still  and  let  it  alone ; 


80  PRINCIPLES. 

for  never  did  the  Scotch  proverb,  "  Least  said  is  soon 
est  mended,"  better  apply.  If  you  say  something  is  un 
knowable,  we  ask  what;  and,  if  you  know  what,  then 
'tis  unknowable  no  more.  "  What  do  I  know?  "  asked 
Montaigne.  "  What  do  you  know  ?  "  inquired  Socrates. 
We  know  nothing  completely.  But  if  we  know  any 
thing,  it  is  the  image  we  were  made  in,  and  have  no 
name  for  but  God. 

It  is  a  case  for  testimony  of  such  as,  like  Jesus,  say 
they  have  known  God,  and  b}r  their  witness  have  moved 
the  world  more  than  all  discoursers  on  the  elements, 
from  Lucretius  down.  Why  should  not  saints  and 
seers  and  experts  in  piety,  at  the  tribunal  which  is  to 
pass  on  the  facts  in  this  court  of  knowledge,  be  heard 
as  well  as  observers  of  equinoctial  precessions  and 
planetary  conjunctions,  of  a  transit  or  an  eclipse? 
There  are  other  transits  than  of  Venus,  different  con 
junctions  more  truly  celestial,  but  no  eclipse  of  God. 
41  True  science,"  saith  the  poet,  "  is  the  reading  of  his 
name."  Is  it  not  on  record  that  the  most  convinced  of 
heavenly  things  have  been  the  keenest  discerners  of 
earthly  ones  ?  —  such  as  Sweclenborg,  equally  at  home 
among  facts  and  spirits  ;  Linnaeus,  father  of  botany,  who, 
like  Moses,  saw  the  Sempiternal  Omnipotent  passing  by, 
as  his  garments  rustled  their  skirts  ;  and  William  Blake, 
most  ideal  of  English  painters,  who  conversed  with 
the  apostle  Paul,  and  although  ill-treated  and  meanly 
lodged  on  earth,  knew,  as  he  told  his  visitors,  the  Lord 
had  a  splendid  palace  for  him  to  enter  by  and  by.  Her 
der,  the  spiritual  naturalist,  was  found  dead  at  his  desk, 
the  hand  which  had  just  been  writing  cold  and  stiff. 
On  examining  the  paper,  his  friends  perused  these  lines  : 


DEITY.  81 

"  Transported  into  new  regions,  I  cast  around  me  an 
inspired  look.  I  see  the  world  reflecting  the  glory  of 
the  Sublime  Being  who  has  created  it.  The  heaven 
seems  a  tabernacle  of  the  Eternal.  My  feeble  intelli 
gence,  bent  to  the  dust,  unable  to  sustain  the  spectacle 
of  these  august  wonders,  arrests  and  hushes  itself,  stops 
and  is  still."  Did  the  intelligence  stop  with  the  pulse? 

Faith  is  the  pioneer  and  main  constituent  of  knowl 
edge.  Said  an  artist :  "  I  am  going  to  treat  that  sub 
ject  better  than  it  was  ever  handled  before :  I  know  I 
shall  not,  but  I  believe  I  shall."  Doubtless  his  panel 
held  the  record  of  his  belief;  for  there  is  an  upper  as 
well  as  under-standing,  an  observatory  to  gaze  from  as 
well  as  a  house-window  or  ship's  deck.  When  I  saw 
how  riding  through  Boston  on  a  car- top  gave  me,  by 
opening  every  yard  and  attic,  a  new  city,  I  had  a  lesson 
on  the  importance  of  elevation  of  view. 

We  are  getting  better  ideas  of  God.  As  Agassiz 
found  the  stakes  he  drove  into  the  glaciers  changing 
their  place,  so  the  old  dogmatic  heaps  steadily  advance 
to  melt  as  they  are  exposed  to  the  sun.  But  justice  will 
never  be  outgrown  or  left  behind.  In  Bulgaria,  a  thou 
sand  years  ago,  King  Bogaris  inquired  of  Methodius,  a 
Christian  monk  who  was  an  artist,  ' '  Hast  thou  an}r  pic 
ture  to  rival  those  of  the  terrible  deeds  of  my  men  with 
which  my  galleries  are  filled?  "  The  painter  answered, 
4 '  I  will  show  you  the  event  most  dire  a  creature's  eye 
shall  ever  behold,"  and  he  uncovered  his  canvas  of  the 
"  Last  Judgment."  This  missionary  with  his  brush  con 
verted  the  pagan  monarch  and  all  his  subjects,  and  the 
seed  was  planted  of  the  church  which  now  in  a  death-grip 
closes  with  the  Mohammedan  faith.  Not  long  ago  hun- 

6 


82  PRINCIPLES. 

dreds  of  Greek  Christians  in  the  presence  of  Turkish  offi 
cials  were  cut  down  for  refusing  to  recant.  "Infidel,"  so 
each  one  was  addressed,  "wilt  thou  save  tlry  soul  by  fol 
lowing  God  and  the  prophet  ?  "  "  No  ! "  answered  the  mar 
tyr,  and  at  the  word  his  head  dropped  under  the  sword. 
To  one  youth,  whose  beauty  pleased  the  executioners, 
the  question  was  put  thrice ;  and  the  reply  was,  "By  God's 
help,  never! "  till  he  too  fell  under  the  fatal  blow.  Had 
he  no  knowledge  of  that  to  which  he  appealed  ?  We  have 
gauges  and  meters  for  light  and  heat  and  rain.  Earth, 
sea,  or  air  has  no  unfathomable  depth.  But  what  quick 
silver  or  spirit-tube,  what  deep-sea  line  or  astronomic 
reckoning,  has  told  to  what  degrees  piety  may  attain? 
What  opportunity  of  temptation  or  charming  attraction 
could  find,  in  Joseph's  or  in  St.  Anthony's  purity,  a  shal 
low  point  or  possible  end?  I  know  a  poet  who  sa}*s, 
the  wave-washed  crags  shall  be  flown  away  with  on  the 
wings  of  time,  but  love  shall  outlast  such  transitory 
things.  Only  by  experience  of  love  could  the  poet  be 
taught.  " It  is  well," said  James  Walker,  "to  speculate 
about  pra}rer,  but  how  much  better  to  pray  ! "  I  imagine 
that,  as  Daniel  Webster  told  the  farmers  they  would 
learn  more  from  conversation  than  from  books,  so  one 
real  address  to  our  Author  is  more  instructive  than 
much  metaphysical  reading.  Some  students  in  college 
said  that  the  professor  talked  about  electricity,  but 
never  gave  them  a  chance  to  feel  the  electric  shock  !  I 
appreciate  the  argument  for  Deity  from  necessary  ideas 
or  actual  works ;  but  I  do  not  reason  when  a  sense  of 
his  being  touches  me,  and  his  beauty  and  benignity  fill 
with  joyful  assurance  the  channels  whose  emptiness 
alone  is  my  doubt  and  fear.  When  I  saw  the  ocean's 


DEITY.  83 

inlet  up  to  the  brown  hills  and  woodland  brooks  swell 
with  the  rising  tide  ;  when  the  wind  of  the  spirit,  like  the 
south  breeze  on  the  fainting  flowers,  listed  to  revive  me 
out  of  all  my  discouragement  and  grief,  —  I  cared  not 
for  other  demonstration,  more  than  for  proof  that  my 
helpmate  was  alive  by  my  side.  There  may  be  a  con 
genital  incapacity  for  communing  with  God.  In  favor  of 
the  second  commandment  Charles  Sumner  would  wipe 
out  the  first ;  but  without  the  first,  in  the  long  run  the 
second  would  fare  hard.  Abou  Ben  Adhem's  curiosity 
to  know  if  he  were  among  the  Lord's  lovers  was  no  sin ; 
and  the  love  of  fellow-men  would  not  last  if  from 
no  height  of  worship  its  stream  should  fall.  The  say 
ing  travels  concerning  certain  famous  English  writers, 
"  Three  positivists  and  no  God."  But  how  find  him? 

I  find  him,  first,  in  his  name.  Is  it  answered  that  is 
only  a  word?  But  what  are  words?  People  do  not 
forge  and  utter  words  as  they  please.  They  cannot  be 
made  or  unmade  by  the  votes  of  assemblies  or  edicts  of 
kings.  They  are  chronic.  They  come  into  existence 
by  a  law  of  nature.  They  are  carved  out  of  unstable 
air  by  a  supernatural  power.  To  call  God's  word  or 
name  "priestcraft"  is  itself  cant.  A  set  of  priests 
could  no  more  have  created  it  than  the}^  could  an  ocean 
or  a  mountain-range.  Dut}r  is  twin  with  adoration,  and 
without  its  nurse  of  devotion  pines  and  droops. 

"  The  stars  shine  not  in  their  houses, 
But  o'er  the  pinnacles  of  thine," 

writes  the  poet  to  his  mistress,  making  the  celestial 
posts  stations  and  sentry-boxes  for  what  he  loves.  His 
figure,  in  the  way  of  knowledge,  is  worth  all  the  astron- 


84  PRINCIPLES. 

omy  through  the  confounding  stretch  of  constellations 
which  Mr.  Proctor  describes. 

"  The  hosts  of  God  encamp  around 
The  dwellings  of  the  just." 

If  not,  what  is  their  use  ?  There  might  as  well  be  no 
hosts  !  ' T is  the  only  standing  army  I  respect.  "The 
glimpses  of  the  moon "  were  none  too  big  a  candle  to 
show  to  a  son  his  father's  ghost.  Leave  the  heart's 
meaning  out,  and  there  were  no  loss  in  folding  the  heav 
ens  as  a  vesture  or  rolling  them  together  as  a  scroll. 
"If  there  be  gods,  'tis  pleasant  to  die;  if  none,  it  is 
not  pleasant  to  live : "  for  who  then  would  care  how 
soon  this  farce  of  matter  were  pla}red  out  and  the  tent 
of  the  universe  struck?  Matthew  Arnold  says,  "God 
means  the  Brilliant  in  the  sky."  But  what  makes  it  to 
shine  and  to  wear  the  blue  firmament  for  a  robe  ?  There 
could  have  been  no  name  if  no  Lord,  —  as  no  names  for 
plant,  beast,  earth,  sea,  but  that  these  things  were,  and  to 
do  aught  in  his  name  is  to  do  it  by  his  strength  and  for 
his  honor.  "After  all,  God  bless  you,"  I.  said  to  a 
good-natured  atheist,  as  we  parted  ;  and  he  rejoined  with 
a  smile,  "  I  know  what  you  mean!  "  If  there  be  no 
God,  where  did  he  get  his  title  ?  Who  performed  the 
baptismal  service  for  him,  and  at  what  font  did  he 
stand?  Csesar  may  be  a  myth,  and  Eve  in  the  garden 
a  tale,  but  no  appellations  can  overrate  the  Eternal. 

Secondly,  I  find  him  in  his  work  :  what  he  does,  shows 
what  he  is.  All  the  phrases  which  sceptics  think  so 
lightly  of,  concerning  him,  are  but  the  labels  of  his  won 
ders.  "  But  all  the  Bibles,"  says  the  denier,  "  are  hu 
man  compositions  written  in  time  :  show  me  sacred  books 


DEITY.  85 

that  existed  before  the  men  did,  I  will  admit  they  were 
from  God  !  "  But  did  the  penmen  indeed  originate  the 
subject  of  their  books?  Was  not  their  stint  set?  We 
do  not  affirm  a  God  out  of  us.  What  is  out  of  us  is 
not  so  easy  to  say.  The  whole  creation  is  somehow 
in  our  thought.  I  have  a  feeling  that  fetches  down 
Orion.  I  draw  him  to  me  by  a  thread  of  light.  My 
imagination  girdles  the  Pleiades.  Sirius,  that  more 
magnificent  sun,  a  thousand  million  miles  away,  minds 
my  arithmetic,  revolves  in  the  space  of  my  bosom, 
quivers,  and  pours  out  volcanic  floods  of  light  as  my 
little  telescope  includes  him  within  the  walls  of  my 
throbbing  clay.  God  is  not  less  because  to  me  he  ex 
ists  not  externally  but  in  the  consciousness  of  my  own 
bosom,  and  I  cannot  dismiss  my  guest.  If  no  charac 
ters  by  him  were  ever  entered  on  a  paper  leaf,  stone 
tablet  from  Sinai,  or  Egyptian  column,  do  we  not  find 
his  engraving  in  living  organisms  and  on  the  vast  layers 
of  the  globe  ? 

Providence  is  one  of  these  obstinate,  indestructible 
words  in  the  daily  discourse  of  mankind,  — whether  gen 
eral  or  particular,  the  schools  dispute.  But  a  great, 
forthreaching,  unbaffled,  and  unending  plan,  a  purpose 
through  the  ages,  one  must  be  worse  than  color-blind 
not  to  see,  with  a  steady  accomplishment,  —  style  it 
fitness,  adjustment,  design,  as  }TOU  will.  But  "a  power 
that  makes  for  righteousness"  must  know  wrhat  it  is 
about.  Can  a  sightless  archer  every  time  hit  the  mark  ? 
Could  that  expert  shooter  who  cracks  a  glass  ball  with 
a  lead  one  in  the  air,  rarely  missing  his  aim,  perform 
such  a  feat  without  an  eye  ?  But  does  not  Providence 
miss?  To  our  partial  vision  so  it  may  sometimes 


86  PRINCIPLES. 

seem.  But  when  we  look  at  the  target  and  know  the 
object,  we  find  the  centre  touched.  It  is  only  because 
we  assume  an  intent  to  make  virtue  alwa}Ts  happy  —  as 
a  cheap  novel  ends  with  a  successful  match  —  that  we 
question  if  there  be  a  Providence  at  all.  If  our  being 
and  position,  however,  on  the  whole  be  not  a  boon,  we 
could  not  find  God  in  any  testimony  of  other  folk.  Na 
ture  must  show  him  before  I  can  accept  him  on  that 
great  hearsay  of  the  Bible  ;  and  famous  names  of  psalm 
ist  and  seer,  heading  the  list,  cannot  settle  the  matter, 
unless  the  answer  of  experience  indorse  the  verbal  God. 
In  addition  to  the  creeds,  which  are  other  people's  de 
posits,  I  must  have  funds  of  my  own.  Would  any  poet's 
description  suffice  to  me  for  nature's  charms  ?  Must  I 
not  find  true  his  inventory  or  memorandum  of  the  beauty 
that  has  been  my  bath  as  I  gazed  at  the  grass  and 
flowers,  climbed  the  hills,  heard  the  gurgle  of  the  brooks, 
felt  under  my  boat  the  lift  of  the  seas,  and  surveyed 
through  my  lens  or  window  the  procession  of  the  stars  ? 
So,  unless  God  be  my  personal  acquaintance,  antique 
letter  and  solemn  sacrament  are  in  vain.  Does  he  in 
habit  a  dedicated  house,  sanctify  a  seventh  day,  become 
incarnate  in  one  human  form,  enter  the  communicant's 
digestion  in  a  consecrated  crumb  of  bread  and  drop  of 
wine,  appear  in  a  picture  or  carved  crucifix?  Can  we 
touch  him  in  holy  water,  smell  him  in  altar  incense, 
hear  him  in  a  collect  for  the  Supper  or  High  Mass,  and 
behold  him  in  the  elevation  of  the  Host?  Must  I  wor 
ship  him  in  an  only-begotten  Son,  a  Virgin  mother,  or 
an  immaculate  Mary's  mother,  in  the  canonical  saints, 
ministering  priest,  or  infallible  pope?  No,  not  so  only : 
my  body,  too,  is  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  the 
universe  is  no  refuge  for  foundlings  save  a  few  elect. 


DEITY.  87 

God  had  no  partiality  for  Jesus ;  through  what  an 
unsparing  school  that  Captain  of  our  Salvation  was  put ! 
The  Most  High  has  no  cabinet.  Not  a  nook  of  nature 
but  is  his  workshop,  not  an  event  without  his  proced 
ure.  Persian  sun-worshipper,  Buddhist  self-anihila- 
tor,  Egyptian  pyramid-embalmer,  Mohammedan  saint, 
Red-man  sacrificing  to  the  great  spirit,  or  Ethiopia  out 
stretching  her  hand  in  prayer,  is  as  dear  to  him  as 
lowly  Christian  or  devout  Jew,  as  a  mart}T  Stephen  or 
Nathanael  without  guile.  As  all  lands  are  woven  to 
gether  by  the  cables  and  wires  that  thread  the  air  or 
undergird  the  sea,  so  every  communication  of  Deity 
to  which  I  accord  significance  must  terminate  in  my 
self,  and  I  must  feel  of  every  message  the  tingling 
touch.  Perhaps  I  can  be  so  at  home  in  another's  heart 
as  to  feel  it  there  !  To  live  in  the  heart,  which  we  can 
not  live  without,  is  love  !  Lovers,  says  Shakspeare, 
like  Ferdinand  and  Miranda,  change  eyes,  each  looking 
with  the  other's  sight ;  and  I  suppose  sympathy  can  be 
so  intense  that  the  friend's  state  of  mind  passes  more 
swiftly  than  a  flash  and  becomes  ours.  Hence  a  fellow 
ship  removing  all  individual  bounds  ;  and  on  this  rock 
is  built  the  spiritual  church.  Communion  of  saints  is  the 
life-boat  that  cannot  be  swamped  in  the  materialistic 
sea. 

""Thus,  thirdly,  I  say  we  find  God  not  only  in  his  name, 
and  his  work  which  gives  him  his  name,  but  in  his  nature 
or  image.  Had  he  left  no  sign-manual  of  his  authorship 
in  our  frame,  all  else  were  to  us  a  dumb  show.  Why  do 
beasts  and  insects  not  perceive  the  drift  of  the  plot  on 
this  broad  external  stage?  Because,  even  in  their  inno 
cence,  they  cannot  yet  come  to  themselves,  and  in  them 
selves  find  their  Father. 


88  PRINCIPLES. 

But  what  features  of  his  face  are  unveiled  to  us? 
First,  of  sincerity,  the  open  look.  Wiry  can  we  not  be 
free  from  this  candid  bond,  but  that  the  Divinity  reveals 
within  us  his  essence  of  truth,  as  a  claim  beyond  con 
venience  or  uses  of  the  hour,  so  infinite  that  no  liar  can 
be  content  till  he  has  confessed?  After  what  long  and 
stubborn  perjury,  from  at  last  being  convinced  by  some 
co- conspirator  that  falsehood  is  kindest  and  best,  a 
quickened  conscience  forces  the  wretched  deceiver,  man 
or  woman,  in  mutual  crime,  to  own  at  last  even  the  for 
swearing,  and  throw  off  the  disguise  that  hinders  peace 
with  God !  The  very  clothing  of  the  soul  is  on  fire  to 
burn  and  consume  while  it  persists  in  untruth !  Next, 
the  line  of  rectitude  in  this  countenance  we  pray  God 
to  lift  upon  us,  and  which  he  never  quite  withdraws. 
Truth  is  right  speech,  and  righteousness  is  true  conduct. 
If  your  neighbor  will  not  rest  in  any  wrong  }TOU  do  him, 
you  will  be  the  last  to  be  satisfied  with  your  own  unfair 
ness,  because  Deity  is  equity  in  your  vital  parts.  There 
is  one  more  lineament  in  that  face  whose  glance  we  can 
not  escape  ;  it  is  goodness.  But  the  goodness  must  be 
more  than  doting  on  one  person,  however  winsome  and 
dear.  I  know  an  earnest  love  ;  but  God  save  me  from 
an  exclusive  one,  and  keep  me  from  wishing  or  enduring 
the  monopoly  of  a  human  heart !  We  may  be  partial  to 
one  person,  like  the  sun  flattering  some  mountain- top 
or  blazing  back  from  some  windowed  tower  as  he  rises 
or  sets ;  but  be  we  also  impartial  as  the  sun,  making 
the  whole  earth  his  reflection  and  flinging  his  radiance 
through  the  sky.  The  most  devoted  particular  affec 
tion  can  be  but  one  direction  of  the  rays  that  embrace 
all  our  fellows  and  find  no  limit  in  any  border  of  the 


DEITY.  89 

world.  The  obligation  of  this  triune  truth,  justice, 
and  love  hints  the  divinity  without  which  it  could  not 
exist. 

Is  there  deformity  in  nature  ?  Nature's  over- abound 
ing  beauty  makes  the  apparent  deformity  its  foil.  Is 
there  ugliness  in  human  nature  ?  ' '  The  beauty  of  holi 
ness  "  offsets  and  chases  it  away  as  a  sea-fog  or  flitting 
cloud.  We  may  know  what  progress  a  man  has  made 
by  the  importance  of  Satan  in  his  creed.  If  the  devil 
have  a  large  place,  the  man  is  low  down  in  the  valley 
where  all  the  depravities  cluster  and  flock.  As  the  man 
rises,  the  demons  flee.  As  he  unfolds,  they  disap 
pear.  God  does  not  recognize  them,  nor  do  they  exist 
to  him. 

Once  more  we  find  God  in  the  healthful  exercise  of 
our  powers,  not  in  one  faculty  of  reverence,  but  in  all 
our  labor  and  study  and  human  service,  as  much  as  in 
the  order  of  the  sanctuary,  or  a  grace  at  table,  or  in  mus 
ing,  like  David's,  on  our  bed,  or  Isaac's  meditation  at 
eventide.  We  find  him  in  innocent  pleasures  as  in  sol 
emn  forms,  as  parents  are  as  much  pleased  with  their 
children's  gambols  as  with  their  deferential  requests. 
The  little  orthodox  boy,  repeating  his  prayers  so  punc 
tually  in  his  country  cot,  said  one  morning,  "  Good-by, 
God  !  I  am  going  to  Boston  to  stay  a  fortnight ;  "  he 
not  having  been  taught  how  that  sublime  Presence  would 
smile  on  him  amid  all  the  sights  of  the  city  as  when  the 
soul  was  commended  to  him  in  sleep.  The  small  girl 
was  pious  in  a  more  rational  way,  who,  going  home  from 
her  first  dance,  ere  she  put  off  her  pretty  dress,  fell 
on  her  knees  to  thank  God  for  the  pleasure  he  had  given 
her  at  the  children's  ball. 


90  PRINCIPLES. 

We  expect  to  find  God  in  a  future  state,  which  we 
await  patiently. 

"  In  this  close  body  pent, 
Absent  from  thee  I  roam." 

But  we  may  not  expect  to  see  him  in  heaven  quite  oth 
erwise  than  on  earth.  As  these  outward  heavens  have 
a  like  constitution  with  the  material  earth,  in  whose 
dark  bowels  below  are  the  same  metals  which  the  spec 
troscope  detects  in  the  rays  of  the  sun,  so  true  celestial 
or  terrestrial  life  and  happiness  agree.  We  have  been 
admonished  by  the  preacher,  in  view  of  eternity,  to 
despise  and  postpone  the  passing  hour. 

"  The  present  moment  flies, 
And  bears  our  life  away." 

But  the  present  of  a  man  is  not  like  that  of  a  beast.  It 
is  not  limited  to  the  tick  of  the  clock,  or  imprisoned  in 
walls  of  space.  It  is  made  up  of  memory  and  hope. 
It  is  the  focus  of  yesterday  and  to-morrow,  of  a  thou 
sand  experiences  and  anticipations.  A  cultivated  man 
is  like  the  chronometer,  constructed  to  measure  months 
and  years  as  well  as  seconds  of  time ;  or  like  the  dial, 
the  shadow  of  whose  gnomon  cuts  by  degrees  the  whole 
circle  of  light.  Every  instant  act  or  immediate  enter 
prise  is  characterized  by  what  wide  contemplation! 
The  eyes  of  Abraham  or  of  Abraham  Lincoln  stop  not 
with  the  object  before  them,  but  have  a  far-awa}*  look 
at  country  and  posterity,  at  what  is  past  and  to  come. 
The  soldier  for  liberty  and  native  land  thinks  less  of  the 
blow  he  gives  or  takes  than  of  the  issue  of  the  fight. 
Satan  is  not  the  god  even  of  this  world  more  than  of 
that  to  come.  But  for  the  true  God,  the  world,  in  all 


DEITY.  91 

its  parts  and  ongoings,  were  a  house  without  a  builder, 
a  train  without  a  conductor,  a  procession  without  a  head, 
a  sepulchre  and  not  a  home,  or  an  asylum  for  orphans 
instead  of  one  mansion  in  a  larger  house.  To  a  gloomy 
theology  its  fabric  looks  like  a  vast  block  which  disaster 
or  disease  has  emptied,  and  which  is  not  haunted  even, 
though  it  may  have  "  To  let "  hanging  over  its  doors. 

What  was  that  hereafter  we  call  heaven  invented  for 
but  for  love  to  live  in,  —  the  shrine  of  its  pilgrimage, 
the  altar  for  renewal  of  its  vows,  the  opportunity  for 
fresh  greeting,  with  room  for  everlasting  accommodation  ? 
What  promissory  note  so  good  as  God's  writing  on  our 
heart  of  this  hope  !  "  Ye  are  our  epistle,"  says  Paul  to 
his  Corinthian  converts.  Nay,  we  are  God's  epistle, 
and  what  he  has  inscribed  on  these  fleshty  tables  he  will 
answer,  and  never  deny  his  responsibiluvy  for  the  instru 
ment  he  has  drawn.  Science  is  a  witness  of  his  work  ; 
but  love  is  a  voucher  for  his  purpose.  Science  deals 
with  the  successions  and  transformations  of  matter,  and 
never  goes  be}rond  what  has  a  beginning  and  end ;  but 
love  declares  it  was  before  the  world's  foundation,  and 
shall  be  after  its  end.  It  is  the  fire  itself,  and  not  that 
which  is  or  can  be  consumed.  It  is  God  in  us.  It  is 
the  soul  of  honor  and  virtue.  Policy  of  what  is  for  our 
advantage  may  in  smooth  sailing  keep  us  straight ;  but, 
storm-tried,  what  stately  reputations,  with  all  their 
streamers  of  fame  and  influence,  go  down !  Yet,  as  no 
drouth  can  drink  up  the  fountains,  nor  frost  quench  the 
flames,  nor  sirocco  burn  the  atmosphere,  nor  cyclone 
reach  to  the  stars  or  overset  the  hills,  so  there  is,  even 
in  these  tabernacles,  a  worth  in  which  whoso  finds  God 
cannot  lose  his  own  soul. 


92  PRINCIPLES. 

In  doctrine  one  may  be  materialist,  but  not  in  prac 
tice.  Things  do  not  fill  any  mind  in  proportion  to  their 
qualities  of  weight,  color,  or  size.  Does  the  big  globe 
occupy  any  such  room  on  your  premises  as  the  little  fig 
ure  of  your  companion  or  friend  ?  One  house  may  take 
up  more  space  than  the  street  or  continent.  A  soldier 
who  fought  for  liberty  and  native  land  said  he  would 
not  shed  a  drop  of  his  wife's  blood,  even  for  his  country. 
What  horror  arose  on  the  proposition  to  save  the  old 
slave  Union  by  sending  brother  or  mother  into  bondage  ! 
How  we  pack  the  annals,  geologic  or  historic,  of  the 
earth,  into  a  corner  of  our  brain  !  How  a  passion  for 
one  man  or  woman  will  sweep  the  board,  wipe  the  slate, 
break  down  all  partitions  betwixt  heart  and  head,  and 
penetrate  our  being  to  its  roots  !  See  the  lovers,  tinge- 
ing  all  nature  with  their  thought,  seeking  the  lonely 
path,  the  high  tower,  deep  wood,  or  desert  shore,  that 
they  may  not  be  disturbed  by  alien  subjects  or  other 
forms !  By  what  profound  topic  or  knotty  question 
could  they  be  so  absorbed?  Are  they  interested  in 
science  or  art?  Surely  not  on  Newton's  gravitation,  or 
Darwin's  selection,  or  any  picture  of  Titian  or  Tinto 
retto,  are  they  engaged !  A  theme  for  argument,  a 
great  affair,  would  divert  them  from  each  other  and 
from  their  track  ;  and  any  trifle  is  enough  to  give  vent 
to  the  feeling  it  is  so  painful  for  them  to  suppress,  as  a 
little  wire  discharges  the  thunder-cloud. 

Men  have  many  interiors,  and  in  storing  their  apart 
ments  make  many  mistakes.  With  some,  pleasure  only 
is  admitted^  till  happiness  is  destroyed.  With  more, 
business  is  supreme  tenant,  driving  all  others  out ;  and 
when  the  capacity  or  opportunity  for  that  fails,  how  the 


DEITY.  93 

man  of  native  strength,  having  no  love  of  beauty,  or 
taste  for  society,  or  relish  for  books,  or  affectionate  en 
joyment  even  of  his  home,  flounders  like  a  stranded 
whale,  empty  of  comfort  in  his  age,  the  eye  now  lack 
lustre  that  was  once  so  keen  at  a  bargain,  and  at  last 
gazing  fixedly  and  sourly  at  the  death  which  is  the  only 
refuge  from  a  miserable  life  !  Can  the  mind  be  a  ware 
house,  with  no  attic  or  garret  even  to  entertain  the 
idea  of  a  God  ?  Shall  the  atheist  answer,  It  is  a  super 
stition  which  science  has  outgrown?  I  will  rejoin, 
Large  as  his  sensible  understanding  maybe,  his  unbelief 
is  a  vacuity  in  his  own  head  !  Like  one  in  whom  some 
bodily  member  or  organ  is  wanting,  he  has  not  the 
usual  equipment  and  outfit.  With  the  propagandist  of 
scepticism  I  find  no  fault ;  only  I  find  him  empty,  and 
cannot  feel  anger,  but  only  pity  for  his  defect.  By 
congenital  want  or  artificial  mutilation  one  entire  side 
of  his  proper  nature  has  been  lopped  off  or  left  out.  All 
men  and  nations  are  not  in  error,  while  he,  with  his 
handful  of  fellow-deniers  of  spirit  and  devotees  of  the 
clod,  is  sound  and  right.  Destitution  is  of  divers  sorts. 
It  is  bad  enough  to  be  short  of  an  eye,  hand,  or  foot, 
to  be  deaf  to  music,  or  color-blind.  But  all  else  is  a 
slight  privation  compared  with  the  lack  in  the  human 
bosom  of  a  sense  of  the  divine. 

Well  guarded  by  conscience  as  one  may  be,  his 
morality  is  at  risk  if  not  backed  with  responsibility  to 
an  unquestionable  witness  and  infallible  judge.  What 
trustworthiness  is  there  in  a  moral  sense  that  has  no 
root  ?  If  I  cannot  tap  for  my  refreshment  the  resources 
of  an  infinite  strength,  temptation  may  increase  till  all 
worldly  motives  and  restraints  give  way ;  and  tempta- 


94  PRINCIPLES. 

tion,  as  the  novelist-preacher  Thackeray  tells  us,  is  om 
nipresent  in  wilderness  and  town.  "  It  is  an  obsequious 
servant,  that  has  no  objection  to  the  country,"  and  pur 
sues  us  into  the  most  inaccessible  retreats. 

Certainly  an  idea  of  God  cannot  be  arbitrarily  im 
posed.  Our  respect  is  summoned  to  all  the  results  of 
free  thought,  although  the  elimination  of  Deity  should 
be  one.  But  when  thought  commits  suicide,  and 
starves  itself  by  disowning  the  breast  it  is  nursed  at 
and  cannot  be  weaned  from,  the  death  is  no  ground 
of  jubilee.  The  obsequies  are  sad.  If  no  one  thought 
of  me,  how  could  I  be?  If  I  am  accident,  and  the 
gods  save  in  fancy  do  not  exist,  then  I  do  not  wish 
even  to  think,  and  am  ready  for  my  decease.  Fetch 
straightway  my  coffin  and  my  shroud ! 

Whether  Deity  be  personal  or  impersonal  is  a  ques 
tion  whose  solution  in  any  way  cancels  not  the  inward 
sense.  His  personality  is  not  ours  raised  to  the  highest 
power,  but  ours  is  his  reduced  to  the  lowest  terms. 

Surely  he  will  reach  us  in  some  way.  If  the  calm 
fails  to  persuade  us  of  his  presence,  the  demonstration 
will  be  completed  by  the  storm,  as  when  the  steamer 
and  the  iceberg  meet.  Some  neighbors  met  a  year 
ago  to  talk  of  horses  and  cattle  in  a  country-barn. 
The  tempest  had  been  up  all  night  and  all  day,  like 
a  moving  and  bursting  water-spout,  which  seemed  at 
last,  having  turned  the  roads  into  rivers  and  the  plains 
into  ponds,  to  have  spent  all  its  store.  But  from  a 
little  reserve  or  remnant  of  cloud  which  the  horizon  sent 
up  swiftly  like  a  ' '  Monitor  "  with  its  hidden  battery,  fell 
a  sudden  bolt  to  wrench  out  the  corner  of  the  building, 
and  in  a  moment  set  its  contents  on  fire,  bringing  all 


DEITY.  95 

in  it  with  the  shock  to  their  knees,  and  scarce  failing  to 
crush  them  to  the  ground.  What  is  this  business-firm 
and  partnership  and  executive  department  of  the  light 
ning  and  the  fire  ?  Light  as  a  feather  and  buoj^ant  as 
a  balloon  seems  the  cloud  out  of  which  the  electricity 
"  slips  so  smoothly  that  a  sense  of  beauty  mingles  with 
our  fear."  But  where  lurks  the  potentiality  which  no 
heavy  enginery  can  match,  and  what  is  the  quality  of 
force  whose  quantity  might  not  spill  over  the  hollow 
of  our  hand,  but  which,  when  hurled  from  the  Divine 
finger,  rends  mortise  and  masonry  apart?  If  it  be  a 
lever,  where  is  the  fulcrum  ?  if  a  hammer,  what  is  the 
hold?  if  a  chisel,  how  is  it  whet?  and  if  it  be  mother 
of  all  the  mechanical  powers,  who  ever  saw  the  terri 
ble  womb  that  perpetually  brings  it  forth ?  "In  thun 
der  and  lightning  and  rain,"  the  structure  these  men  were 
in,  an  awful  bonfire,  shrivelled  and  crumbled,  its  beams 
and  rafters  for  a  while  a  blazing  web  in  the  air,  and 
then  dissolved  in  smoke.  The  human  and  animal  crea 
tures  were  one  tumultuous  group  on  the  greensward 
that  steamed  with  the  heat,  all  of  them  feeling  alike  the 
resistless  sway.  A  heap  of  red  cinders,  soon  turning 
to  damp  gray  ashes,  remained,  while  the  flying  artillery 
of  the  air,  like  a  white  wreath  of  vapor,  rolled  on  with 
concealed  yet  resounding  wheels  to  strike  elsewhere 
again.  But  earth  and  sky  are  righted  by  what  leaps  at 
once  from  both !  It  is  the  quiver  on  the  shoulders  of 
the  Most  High ;  and  they  on  whom  the  bow  has  been 
once  drawn  covet  not  the  launching  of  another  shaft.  In 
the  flash  and  stroke  together  is  ' '  the  vision  of  sudden 
death."  Jupiter  tonans  the  Deity  was  called  by  the 
Greeks,  and  in  Hebrew  poetry  "the  Lord  thundereth 


96  PRINCIPLES. 

marvellously  with  his  voice."  But  when  on  the  fury 
and  the  noise  rises  the  morning-star,  serene  as  if 
nothing  had  occurred,  comes  the  chief  impression  of 
strength.  The  elemental  strife  is  but  a  "  dreadful 
pother ; "  but  the  quiet  order  is  an  unfathomable  deep  ; 
and  in  the  soul  is  an  energy,  akin  to  its  Author's,  which 
no  clamor  of  land  or  sea  or  sky  can  overcrow.  How 
lightly  and  at  once,  like  ants  busily  restoring  their  sand 
hills  on  the  track,  the  human  creatures  rear  out  of 
ashes  their  ruined  abodes,  and  plan  new  and  greater 
barns  where  they  may  bestow  all  their  fruits  and  their 
goods ! 

But  while  the  old  unfathomable  energy  lasts,  and 
defies  alike  our  comprehension  and  our  gauge,  the  wor 
ship  of  the  race  can  never  be  uprooted  by  any  doubt. 
No  axe  can  be  laid  at  the  root  of  this  tree ;  for  the 
treasures  of  the  wind  and  rain  and  hail  have  not  run 
out.  The  banker  in  this  institution  can  always  resume  ! 
His  notes  may  be  issued  on  long  credit,  but  they  are 
paid  punctually  and  are  never  overdue.  The  blinding 
bolt  is  not  itself  blind  which  fetches  us  in  prayer  to 
our  perhaps  unused  and  forgotten  knees  ;  and  ' '  prayer 
without  ceasing,"  signified  or  not  by  any  bodily  attitude, 
is  the  true  posture  of  the  mind.  Till  God  goes  into 
bankruptcy  and  the  heavens  fail,  we  shall  depend  on 
and  draw  from  what  was  never  put  to  our  credit  in  any 
vault  or  iron  safe.  "  Thanks  and  use,"  Shakspeare 
adds  to  Christ's  admonitions  and  to  David's  psalms. 

Scientists  speculate  and  practical  men  talk  as  if 
there  were  in  some  cycle  of  time  a  slackening  at  na 
ture's  forge,  the  snows  not  so  deep,  or  summer  days 
so  warm,  or  tides  so  high  as  before.  But  the  axle 


DEITY.  97 

turns,  and  lo,  the  dog-star  again  rages,  the  coast  is 
once  more  submerged,  the  thick  winter-fleece  clothes 
the  earth,  and  all  precedents  are  surpassed,  to  spoil 
memor}r,  confound  calculation,  and  cover  us  with  con 
fusion,  till,  in  another  lull  of  nature,  as  if  to  take 
breath,  the  deficits  and  queries  return.  But  adoration^ 
like  every  sentiment,  will  not  miss  its  food. 

No  philosophy  of  materialism  or  mocking  temper  can 
overcome  faith.  The  s corner,  as  with  a  jet  of  water, 
ma}r  put  out  the  jet  of  flame  in  his  talk,  or  fling  a  vitriol 
which  burns  and  gives  no  light.  The  divine  influence, 
as  weU  as  human  love,  is  shut  off  by  contempt.  How 
easily  we  can  think  of  men  whose  genius  has  been  hin 
dered  b}7  the  smartness  of  their  wit !  "A  haughty  spirit 
goes  before  a  fall "  in  our  intellect  no  less  than  in  our 
lot.  Rabelais,  whose  learning  was  matched  by  his  acute- 
ness  alone,  seeing  in  all  things  a  ludicrous  side,  and 
making  a  coarse  jest  of  that  womanhood  which  is  the 
chief  revelation  of  Deit}'  to  ever}7  true  man,  when  he 
expired,  could  only  say,  "Draw  the  curtain,  the  farce 
is  played  out ; "  and  when  he  received  extreme  unction, 
he  remarked  that  they  had  greased  his  boots  for  the 
great  journey,  and  that  he  went  to  seek  the  grand  Per 
haps,  while  he  made  a  pun  on  the  robe  put  on  him  for 
the  last  agony,  as  he  declared,  "Blessed  are  they  who 
die  in  Domino  !  "  He  sat  in  the  seat  of  the  scornful. 

But  how  credulous  is  such  an  unbelieving  man  !  What 
astonishing  credit  he  gives  to  the  theory  that  there  is  a 
fate  to  baffle  all  human  desire,  and  that  the  world  is  but 
a  big  apple  of  Sodom  for  its  inhabitants  to  eat !  Only 
by  incredulhVr,  running  to  the  extreme,  can  we  question 
that  this  spectacle,  so  vast  and  fair,  this  splendid  frame 

7 


98  tKINCIPLES. 

for  the  human  picture,  means  only  vanity  and  death.  It 
is  a  confidence  overweening,  indeed,  that,  after  a  little 
pla}7ing  and  short  ciphering,  the  board  is  to  be  swept 
and  the  slate  wiped,  and  that  this  whole  humanity  is  but 
a  series  and  succession  of  forms  toying  in  vain  to  get  their 
chins  above  the  flood.  What  an  inanimate  phantasmago 
ria  were  the  creation  ;  what  a  dark  lantern  the  Creator 
must  carry,  and  with  phosphoric  displa}r  of  false  fire 
write  on  the  wall,  or  cast  figures  for  a  moment's  amuse 
ment  on  this  screen  of  time,  with  but  unreality  before 
it  or  behind!  "We  are  but  empty  shadows,"  will 
the  preacher  say?  If  there  be  in  us  no  substance, 
then  there  is  no  substance  at  all.  We  can  only  behold 
through  our  idea,  as  by  his  telescope  the  astronomer 
beholds  a  star ;  and  if  his  instrument  be  incorrect,  it  is 
not  a  constellation  but  straw-spangle  he  beholds. 

What  God  is,  who  shall  say?  When  the  far-off 
beckons  us,  as  we  sit  on  the  hillside  or  by  the  shore, 
and  the  inmost  in  us  impels  us  to  go,  is  not  the  pros 
pect  and  the  impulse  too  Himself  ?  When  we  regret 
our  deed  or  decision,  and  should  lament  the  opposite 
had  that  been  made  or  done  instead,  what  causes  us  to 
waver,  but  this  Infinite  Being,  which  is  content  with  no 
definite  and  arrested  result?  I  do  not  know  who  God 
is  ;  but  I  do  not  know  any  more  who  I  am  !  He  is  no 
greater  mystery  to  me  than  I  to  m}'self.  The  objection 
that  I  cannot  sound  or  comprehend  the  existence  I 
affirm,  applies  to  that  of  every  creature  that  breathes. 

An  argument  especially  for  faith  is  its  contribution  to 
life.  How  we  live  on  each  other,  and  how  distrust 
plants  the  seeds  of  disease !  Withdrawn  confidence 
weakens  us  centrally,  like  taking  away  fit  soil  from  a 


DEITY.  99 

plant  or  loam  from  an  apple-tree,  food  from  a  beast,  or 
lime  from  our  own  bones :  and  then  sickness,  in  what 
ever  shape  of  diphtheria,  meningitis,  or  consumption, 
seizes  on  the  frame  thus  laid  open  to  its  attack.  One's 
constitutional  malady  we  may  call  it ;  but  want  of  kind 
ness  will  be  a  malady  in  any  constitution !  We  smile 
at  one's  dying  of  disappointed  love,  and  perhaps  any 
single  rejected  affection  is  seldom  fatal  to  life.  But  we 
shall  very  surely,  if  not  quickly,  die  of  not  being  loved 
at  all ;  and  this  should  be  the  post  mortem  record  in  how 
many  a  case !  If  the  guest  be  not  welcome  in  the 
company,  he  will  leave  the  room  at  an  early  hour.  If 
nobody  wants  me  here,  I  am  ready  to  depart !  Aban 
doned  woman,  we  say  :  by  whom  among  men?  The  sin 
against  her,  if  the  expression  be  correct,  is  greater  than 
she  can  have  committed  herself.  Said  the  Bethel  min 
ister,  of  an  incorrigible  transgressor,  ' '  He  is  an  expen 
sive  machine,  but  /  will  never  give  him  up."  Let  us  not 
give  each  other  up,  by  all  our  hope  of  not  being  given 
up  by  God ! 

Faith  in  him  is  indeed  more  indispensable  than  in 
each  other  ;  for  it  is  the  essence  of  life.  How  often  the 
thought  of  him  is  the  only  resort !  Who  has  not  known 
some  woman  of  superior  gifts  and  graces,  }~et  without 
companionship,  or  only  a  partner  that  was  a  cross  on 
which  she  was  crucified  body  and  soul,  with  none  but 
the  Unseen  for  the  mate  of  her  mind  ?  Yet  in  that  com 
munion  she  could  have  peace  and  joy.  Are  such  sub 
lime  issues  from  an  imaginary  source?  We  go  to  it 
empty  and  come  away  full.  Goethe  is  not  accounted 
religious  in  the  church,  }Tet  he  portrays  in  the  "Fair 
Saint"  or  "Beautiful  Soul"  one  whose  petitions  never 
failed  of  reply. 


100  PRINCIPLES. 

In  the  divine  justice  is  our  escape  from  human  wrong. 
There  are  chambers  of  the  Inquisition  which  Catholic 
Spain  never  opened,  and  in  which  no  German  conclave 
ever  met,  to  which  we  are  summoned  by  those  ever  ready 
to  touch  what  is  painful  and  make  the  unpleasant  remark. 
The  thumb-screw  and  iron  boot  have  gone  out  of  fash 
ion,  but  how  the  wedge  of  more  refined  torture  is  driven 
by  domestic  examination  that  does  not  spare  !  ' '  When 
I  see  a  certain  person  coming  to  console  me  for  the 
death  of  my  child,  I  want,"  said  a  bereft  mother,  "to 
run  away."  Let  us  thank  Him  to  whom  we  can  alwa}Ts 
run ! 

God  is  the  problem  whose  last  and  clearest  solution  is 
in  the  corollary  of  duty,  which,  as  Kant  says,  is  the 
practical  reason  piecing  out  the  ladder  to  climb  to  him 
where  the  speculative  ends.  In  this  transparency  of  con 
science  all  the  vexing  riddles  conclude.  With  a  dogged 
satisfaction,  in  dire  extremity,  it  helps  us  to  stand  at 
our  post  and  do  our  office,  as  the  old  "  Cumberland  "  still 
fired  her  guns  when  sinking  to  her  gunwale.  There  was 
something  in  those  sailors,  as  in  all  faithful  unto  death, 
not  going  down ! 

For  the  being  of  God  it  is  the  custom  to  use  diverse 
arguments,  one  from  necessary  ideas,  the  other  from 
design.  Let  us  take  from  beauty  a  third.  It  is  not 
strange  that  men  should  find  it  difficult  to  believe  in  a 
living  goodness  who  are  insensible  to  natural  charms. 
Emile  Gebhart  sa}Ts  that  Rabelais  had  a  feeling  of  moral 
truth  and  beauty,  but  the  grand  poetry  of  visible  things 
never  awoke  in  that  doubter's  heart.  Lake  Leman  and 
Mont  Blanc  could  not  touch  with  one  tone  of  softer  color 
Calvin's  terrible  style  ;  no  wonder  he  made  such  a  hard 


DEITY. 


monster  of  God!     If  Bacon  said  aright.  "Better  than 
think  ill  of  God,  not  think  of  him    at   all,"   tfien  how 
much  of  our  theology  is  naught  !     We  judge  of  men  and 
women    largely   by  the  simplicity  and   good  taste  of 
their  dress  ;    and  though  some  singular  fashions  have 
been  adopted  and  set  to  hide  personal  deformities,  no 
costume  can  quite  conceal  what  is  fine  or  unhandsome  in 
the  proportions  of  the  human  shape.     But  if  nature  be 
the  apparel  of  God,  what  intrinsic  benignity  must  be  his  ! 
Struggle  of  an  evil  principle  with  a  good?     How  the 
grisly  phantom  of  this  second  supposed  adversary  flies 
before  the  torch  of  science,  and  one  beneficent  power 
appears   on    every   hand  !     However  we  may  explain 
suffering,  nothing  malign  can  be  detected  in  the  mag 
nificent  spectacle  so   ever-var}'ing   in   this  everlasting 
theatre,  and  whose  stage-properties  a  kindly  manager 
must  arrange.     What  a  solace  this  great  show  affords 
for   our   grief!      Surely   the   beauty   that   still   shines 
on  death-beds  and  coffins  and  all  that  moulders  in  the 
tombs,  which  it  springs  up  to  cover  and  adorn,  is  full 
of  comfort  and  hope  ;  and  when  we  look  on  the  face 
of  the  dead,  —  so  composed,  every  distortion  of  disease 
removed,  and  even  the  wrinkles  of  age  smoothed  away, 
while  so  commonly  a  smile  seems  stealing  back  to  the 
lips  on  the  third  day,  and  the  features  of  a  little  child 
are  so  sweet  we  can  scarce  bear   to  drop  the  lid  oh 
its   bier,  —  sorrow   as   we    must,    we    cannot    despair. 
What  a  true  hint,  moreover,  in  the  Hebrew  phrase,  "the 
beaut}^  of  holiness  ;  "  for  how  ugly  it  is  to  be  impure  ! 
Mamr  a  bird  or  beast  loves  and  cares  to  be  clean  ;  but 
there  is  an  idea  of  sanctity  held  by  man  alone.     The 
horse  greedy  for  his  oats,  and  the  dog  biting  whoso 


102  PKINCIPLES. 

meddles  with  his  bone,  find  for  their  sensualit}r  no  re 
buke  in  the  surrounding  scene.  Human  creatures  alone 
are  sensual,  because  they  can  imagine  what  cleanses  or 
pollutes.  What  a  speechless  reproof  lights  on  our  drunk 
enness  from  the  steadfast  orbs ;  and  how  the  spotless 
heavens  look  down  grieving  at  every  sinful  excess ! 
To  instruction  in  French  and  music  let  us  for  our  chil 
dren  add  some  lesson  of  beauty  every  day,  to  prevent 
and  moderate  the  passions,  which  there  is  so  much  in 
our  social  habits  to  stir.  No  fear  of  base  incentives 
can  there  be  for  those  by  whom  this  nobler  stimulus  is 
felt. 

If  we  do  not  clamor  to  insert  the  name  of  God  in  any 
written  instrument  after  that  most  venerable  Declaration 
of  Independence,  in  which  the  nation,  yet  unborn,  made 
its  appeal,  it  is  because  in  our  real  constitution  no  word 
is  engraved  so  deeply  ;  and  should  any  legislature  pre 
sume  to  enact  atheism,  what  a  tornado  of  wrath,  which  no 
other  issue  could  stir,  would  arise  to  hurl  the  legislators 
from  their  seats  !  God  is  in  man.  The  German  Heine 
may  be  a  good  witness  that,  if  we  do  not  confound 
Christ  with,  we  must  not  part  him  from  God,  and  that 
our  judgment  of  the  Divinity  must  have  sentiment 
rather  than  criticism  for  a  test.  "  Christ,"  he  says, 
"is  the  born  Dauphin  of  Heaven,  and  has  democratic 
sympathies,  and  delights  not  in  costly  ceremonies,  and 
is  a  modern  God  of  the  people,  a  citizen-God."  He 
adds  :  ' '  From  the  moment  that  a  religion  seeks  the  aid 
of  philosoph}',  its  ruin  is  inevitable.  It  must  not  at 
tempt  to  justify  itself.  The  instant  it  ventures  to  print 
a  'catechism  supported  by  arguments,  it  is  near  its 
end."  We  are  not  first  in  this  case.  The  God  whom 


DEITY.  103 

we  are  after  was  up  before  us,  and  must  wake  us  with 
that  light  of  his  countenance  which  the  morning  is,  or 
we  could  never  be  stirred.  Atheism  serves  us  by  pro 
voking  to  a  better  theism.  We  can  no  longer  worship 
the  God  of  the  old  articles,  —  a  being  jealous  of  his 
own  glory  and  dooming  his  children  to  eternal  woe. 
Our  God  is  one  who  has  no  tiine  or  disposition  to  re 
member  himself.  He  remembers  us,  and  finds  himself 
in  his  children's  breasts.  He  is  blessed  in  their  happi 
ness,  conscious  in  their  persons,  and  parentally  careful 
for  their  good.  He  rushes  into  action  and  measures 
not  his  course,  nor  broods  over  injuries  nor  avenges  his 
wrongs.  Only  the  harm  we  would  do  ourselves  he  can 
cels  and  corrects. 

It  is  a  curious  circumstance  in  the  scripture  chro 
nology  of  the  idea  of  God,  that  while  Job  knows  not 
where  to  find  him  and  David  cannot  flee  from  him  any 
where,  Jesus  blends  with  him  in  one  being.  What  a 
progress  of  millennial  steps,  and  what  a  stride  from 
that  Hebrew  monotheism  to  which  Mohammedanism 
reverts !  In  every  one  he  is.  With  all  the  gasping 
or  bleeding  to  death,  }^et  the  greenwood  thicket,  unfre 
quented  desert,  or  solitary  shore,  where  in  single  com 
bat  men  seek  to  stab  or  blast  out  each  .other's  life, 
and  the  field  or  open  sea,  where  armed  hosts  or  battle 
ships  meet  in  deadly  shock,  —  are  full  of  a  grandeur 
and  grace  which  no  anguish  can  obliterate  or  plough 
ing  of  cannon-balls  either  merge  or  uproot.  To  the , 
atheistic  argument  drawn  from  suffering  who  but  the 
sufferer  replies?  After  an  exhausting  illness,  away 
from  home,  I  was  put,  on  my  journey  through  a  great 
city,  alone  in  an  upper  chamber  under  the  eaves,  there 


104  PRINCIPLES. 

being  no  other  room  in  the  inn.  I  crept  to  a  dormer- 
window,  open  because  the  air  was  mild,  and  gazed  out 
into  the  starlit  firmament  and  on  the  illuminated  street. 
As  I  felt  the  soft  breeze  cool  my  fevered  nerves,  and 
hearkened  to  the  stroke  toward  midnight  of  every  city- 
clock,  and  as  I  held  to  life  with  a  grasp  so  weak  and  an 
attachment  so  loose,  I  was  stirred  with  a  sensibility  to  the 
glory  without  me  never  felt  before.  It  was  but  a  repe 
tition  of  the  ecstasy  that  had  lifted  me  once  before,  as 
I  lay  for  a  week  in  bed,  with  the  north-wind  blowing  at 
the  glass  panes  and  the  billows  foaming  and  resounding 
over  the  rocks  hard  by.  Was  there  for  any  figure  of 
health  and  strength  that  ran  and  leaped  along  the  crags, 
or  rocked  and  sped  on  the  billows,  transport  compar 
able  to  my  pervading  peace  ?  Who  that  has  ever  got 
up  from  a  couch  of  chronic  sickness  or  of  violent  dis 
ease  but  will  remember  the  rapture  of  his  first  ride  in 
the  open  air,  perhaps  among  melting  snows  and  spring 
ing  grass  and  budding  trees?  There  is  no  measure 
for  this  faith.  Agassiz  and  other  Alpine  explorers 
found  they  could  not  hold  even  a  glacier  in  their  stakes. 
By  a  motion  of  the  frozen  particles,  for  which  no  meter 
has  been  invented,  so  the  long  and  monstrous  mass  of 
ice  flowed  imperceptibly  with  all  its  serpentine  wind 
ings,  and  over  its  ever-shifting  and  uneven  bed,  down 
the  hills,  keeping  every  slope  and  valley  full,  and  carry 
ing  the  stakes  the  philosophers  had  driven  so  fast  in 
•its  course.  Thus  all  your  stiff  articles  to  fix  a  tide  of 
life  which  is  fathomless  and  far  diverse  from  any  glac 
ier,  will  inevitably  be  borne  along,  and  found,  if  at  all, 
in  different  places  from  those  where,  as  finalities  of  doc 
trine,  they  were  put ;  and  no  sledge-hammer  strokes  will 
suffice  for  their  arrest. 


DEITY.  105 

Atheism  would  seem,  in  denying  any  demonstration  of 
God,  to  strike  all  the  oracles  dumb,  and  silence  in  con 
venticle  or  cathedral  every  chant  and  prayer.  But  it 
were  easier  to  fasten  on  the  volcano  a  safety-valve,  to 
hold  back  the  geysers  of  Iceland,  to  check  the  sea's 
steaming  into  clouds,  or  the  warmer  currents  of  air  from 
rising  into  ether  farther  than  any  thermometer  can  fol 
low,  than  to  stop  these  risings,  which  we  call  anthems 
and  supplications,  from  the  human  heart.  When  you 
have  prevented  the  weather  itself  with  any  particular 
gauge  of  its  phenomena,  then  you  may  hope  with  your 
prayer-gauge  to  abolish  this  meteorology  within. 

Religion  in  our  schools  is  called  a  sectarian  thing. 
Is  the  wind  sectarian  because  it  is  used  for  a  particular 
man's  van,  or  vane,  or  sail  of  his  outgoing  ship?  Is  the 
water  sectarian  because  it  irrigates  his  garden,  or  on 
the  Merrimack  or  at  Niagara  is  turned  on  the  wheels  of 
his  mill  ?  Is  the  earth  sectarian  because  little  bits  of  its 
surface  are  by  special  ownership  turned  into  fenced 
fields?  Is  the  light  sectarian  because  it  is  possessed 
and  employed  for  your  private  purposes  as  it  streams  in 
at  your  window-panes?  If  not,  then  is  not  religion 
sectarian  because,  in  the  precincts  of  one  or  another 
denomination,  it  is  embodied,  appropriated  in  certain 
articles,  and  set  forth  in  peculiar  forms  ;  and  God  does 
not  belong  to  any  party  because  his  nature  is  con 
strued  in  some  especial  way.  He  is  the  truth  of  things. 
The  thread  the}r  are  strung  on,  as  a  necklace,  is  alive. 
He  is  beauty,  which  is  expression  in  nature  as  in  a  hu 
man  face.  He  is  the  goodness  which  all  good  implies, 
as  it  puts  the  receivers  under  that  necessity  of  thanks 
which  is  the  best  proof  of  a  Deity ;  for  it  is  so  needful 


106  PRINCIPLES. 

to  be  grateful  for  what  we  enjoy  that  we  should  make  a 
fetich  could  our  soul  have  no  other  vent.  Not  only  an 
argument  has  to  be  answered,  but  an  instinct  must 
become  extinct  before  atheism  can  prevail.  Does  the 
denier  expect  to  quench  the  pious  flame  ?  An  innate 
reverence  in  the  human  breast  withstands  and  forbids. 
Religion  is  the  unfailing  bequest.  We  have  protective 
societies  for  children,  to  guard  them  against  the  cruelty 
sometimes  even  of  parental  hands.  Let  us  in  churches 
and  schools  of  every  sort  defend  them  against  atheism 
and  unbelief.  "A  strong  tower  is  our  God,"  sang  Lu 
ther.  It  is  a  fort  we  well  can  hold.  The  atheist  "is  a 
man  against  God  or  the  idea  of  God  in  the  human  mind. 
Whence,  I  ask  him,  did  this  adversar}7  of  his  come  ?  Is 
the  unseen  opponent  that  he  assails  a  fiction  or  invention 
of  the  priests  ?  The  cup  of  real  life  is  not  only  full  to 
overflowing,  but  well-nigh  broken  by  the  glory  poured 
into  it,  sometimes  almost  too  great  to  bear. 

Let  us  admit  progress  of  the  idea  of  God.  If  Job  could 
not  find  him,  and  David  could  not  flee  from  him,  Jesus 
was  one  with  him.  He  so  chanted  him  that  my  fine 
pianist  affirms  that  he  was  the  greatest  musician  that 
ever  lived,  adding,  "I  might  be  laughed  at  in  Boston 
for  such  a  sentiment,  but  should  be  understood  in  Leip- 
sic  or  Berlin."  "Without  God,"  he  continued,  "all 
our  thoughts  are  as  colors  in  the  night."  "  But,"  sa}*s 
the  last  radical  paper  I  read,  ' '  God  is  but  a  figure  of 
speech  ! "  Is  he  not  the  speech  itself  ?  While  we  search 
after  God,  he  searches  after  us.  He  becomes  aware  of 
himself,  as  the  German  philosopher  said,  in  the  human 
mind.  While  we,  like  Job,  are  hunting  for  him,  he 
finds  himself  not  on  a  throne,  in  a  palace,  with  crown 


DEITY.  107 

on  his  head  or  sceptre  in  his  hand,  but  in  our  contrite 
and  obedient  heart.  For  humility  alone  makes  room, 
and  lifts  up  its  gate,  that  he  may  come  in.  He  accepts 
no  lodging,  and  can  get  no  accommodation  in  our 
pride.  In  mountainous  regions  the  valleys  take  in 
more  of  the  sun  than  do  the  hills  ;  and  our  lowliness  is 
his  reception. 


108  PRINCIPLES. 


IV. 

SCIENCE. 

NO  knowledge  of  human  nature  can  be  exact  or 
complete.  Man  is  a  whole,  and  cannot  be  dis 
sected  till  he  is  dead,  has  left  to  the  anatomist  and 
undertaker  what  he  has  no  further  use  for,  and  can  be 
more  entire  without.  If  then  we  accept  the  definition 
science  gives  of  itself,  as  dealing  only  with  appearances 
that  begin  and  end,  there  is  in  it  no  more  religion  than 
in  a  squirrel's  stowing  away  of  acorns,  a  bee's  economy 
of  wax,  or  the  building  of  a  beaver's  dam  ;  and  if  Mr. 
Buckle's  doctrine  be  correct,  that  to  know  more  is  the 
only  progress,  then  knowledge  is  of  no  use  and  scarce 
worth  the  time  and  pains.  For  even  philosophy  were  a 
poor  pursuit  if  it  did  not  lead  to  love  and  service  of 
God  and  man.  A  student  who  had  made  metaphysics 
his  college  elective  said  he  liked  it,  "but  it  led  to  no 
place."  It  is  but  the  crooked  log  through  which  the  pig 
tried  in  vain  to  get  into  his  pen,  if  it  stop  in  speculation. 
It  is  full  of  promise  only  as  a  way-station,  and  it  is 
good  if  it  enlarge  our  heart.  Open  questions  are  the 
mind's  unclosed  windows,  excellent  for  ventilation,  and 
a  final  theory  is  not  to  be  desired.  The  notion  of  evolu 
tion  is  for  the  animal  organism  a  beautiful  fit,  as  of  a 
shoe  to  the  foot  or  glove  to  the  hand:  but  what  is 
evolved  must  have  been  involved;  and,  like  the  bo}T's 


SCIENCE.  109 

lead  whirligig,  the  wheel  is  found  to  turn  back  in  many 
a  vegetable  and  animal  race,  and  the  interior  principle 
of  the  process  is  all  the  while  undisclosed.  The  world 
finds  a  type  in  the  jelly-fish  which  expands  and  con 
tracts  with  its  tentacles  its  transparent  sphere  ;  nor  can 
any  one  tell  which  was  first,  the  nebula  or  the  star. 
Darwin  cannot  demonstrate  that  man  is  an  ascended 
beast,  any  more  than  could  Swedenborg  that  beast  is 
a  descended  man.  Only  this  category  holds,  that  the 
universe  could  not  have  come  from  a  vesicle,  there 
never  having  been  a  time  when  a  universe  must  not 
have  been.  Everlasting  together  are  the  plan  and  plan 
ner  and  thing  planned,  and  Agassiz's  ocean  of  germs 
is  as  satisfactory  as  a  single  bulb  to  start  nature  with ; 
but  what  was  the  primary  and  is  the  perpetual  push  we 
have  yet  to  inquire.  The  raw  material  escapes  in  its 
minuteness,  and  the  Architect  in  his  infinity.  Tile  and 
tiler  are  hid ;  and  the  scientist  is  a  charlatan,  a  shoe 
maker  who  has  dropped  his  last,  or  a  watchman  off  his 
beat,  if  he  pretend  in  any  scheme  that  all  which  is 
can  be  understood.  The  great  philosophers  are  distin 
guished  from  the  small  ones  in  affirming  that  no  phi 
losophy  can  cover  the  ground.  Newton,  Kepler,  and 
Swedenborg  exceed  Laplace  and  Humboldt  in  genius 
and  fame.  Faraday  and  Davy  abroad  and  Henry  and 
Pierce  among  us  bear  witness  to  the  Rock  of  Ages 
underlying  all  beside.  Till  the  mountainous  reputa 
tions  are  blasted  and  blown  away,  science  must  serve 
and  not  rule ;  and  the  specialist  will  not  help  or  pros 
per,  unless  the  universal  set  his  stint. 

There  is  a  saintly  as  well  as  a  scientific  knowledge ; 
and  if  scientists  say  it  is  feeling  and  not  knowledge, 


110  PRINCIPLES. 

they  can  be  pushed  on  this  point  as  much  as  they  push  the 
saints.  What  is  it  to  know  facts,  and  what  fact  do  they 
know?  Their  apprehension  of  any  process  or  element, 
as  of  light,  gravity,  motion,  electricity,  or  magnetism, 
is  so  shallow  and  slight  as  no  more  to  merit  the  name 
of  knowledge  than  the  devotee's  communion  with  that 
immense  soul  of  which  he  is  a  part.  A  Deity  external 
and  separate  from  the  worshipper  cannot  be  found  in 
any  depth  of  earth  or  sky ;  but  he  is  revealed  in  our 
conscience  and  heart.  Beyond  all  the  demonstrations 
from  necessary  ideas  or  actual  works,  is  the  proof  by 
prayer.  When  we  listen  to  a  real  petition,  or  read  its 
genuine  words,  or  are  moved  to  put  it  up,  a  conviction 
rises  of  the  object  it  is  inspired  by  and  goes  to,  which 
deserves  the  name  of  acquaintance  no  less  trul}"  than 
any  rational  deduction  or  observation  of  the  outward 
world.  Let  us  drive  the  logician  or  experimenter  to  his 
intrenchments,  charging  him  with  sciolism  if  he  pre 
sume  to  indict  us  for  superstition  !  Strange  ecstasy  of 
the  mystic,  from  which  we  cannot  withhold  our  respect ! 
The  artist's  aureola  did  not  create,  but  came  from  the 
halo  around  his  head.  In  his  transport  he  cannot  keep 
his  feet  on  the  ground.  Live  coals  seem  to  have 
touched  his  lips  to  eloquence  beyond  oratory  of  the 
senate  or  the  court.  Naught  so  resistless  as  the  conta 
gion  of  his  sympathy  for  the  human  heart.  The  dead 
that  lie  on  the  bier  have  a  resurrection  to  every  hearer 
in  the  uplifting  of  his  speech. 

The  saint,  says  Mohammedan  piety,  does  not  admit 
that  he  is  afflicted.  Suffering  itself  seems  to  waken  a 
consciousness  that  it  is  wrong  to  reproach  God.  Job's 
wife,  not  Job,  wants  to  curse.  Those  not  smitten  by  a 


SCIENCE.  Ill 

calamity  take  the  great  name  in  vain ;  but  "  though  he 
slay  me,  I  will  trust  in  him."  If  he  be  almighty,  he 
cannot  be  all-good,  says  Mr.  Mill.  But  may  we  not 
have  a  false  notion  of  power?  It  does  not  consist  in 
harmonizing  the  contradictory  or  doing  the  impossible. 
Is  it  in  the  power  of  God  to  make  mountains  without 
valleys,  or  seas  without  waves?  It  is  alike  beyond  the 
compass  of  his  ability  to  make  character  without  disci 
pline,  or  by  arbitrament  abate  for  our  final  welfare  a  jot 
of  what  we  endure.  No  doubt  he  does  for  us  the  best 
he  can !  This  counterweight  for  the  sceptic's  argument 
is  in  the  confession  of  such  as  by  the  Lord  are  sorely 
grieved.  u  Oh  no,  you  shall  not  say  any  thing  against 
him,"  cries  the  victim ;  and  surely  no  voice  has  more 
right  in  this  matter  than  his  own.  What  miracle,  more 
than  to  multiply  bread  in  the  desert,  or  at  a  wedding 
turn  water  into  wine,  is  wrought  in  the  agonizing 
breast?  Not  till  we  become  its  subject  can  we  know; 
but  its  experience  in  others  we  cannot  gainsay.  There 
is  an  evolution  not  on  the  earth  or  in  the  succession  of 
its  animated  tribes.  We  are  ourselves  astonished  at 
the  sentiments  toward  our  Author  that  in  the  hardest 
passes  and  ov^r  the  most  bitter  cups  rise  to  the  sur 
face  and  come  to  the  front.  Are  they  knowledge,  or 
fancy  and  a  makeshift  for  refuge  when  we  are  in  a  cor 
ner  and  hard  pressed?  No  one  in  whom  they  exist 
allows  their  illusiveness !  The  wisest  are  most  ear 
nest  to  insist  that  from  these  sensibilities  of  a  resigned 
and  adoring  soul  their  best  information  comes. 

Meantime  to  how  many  queries  science  cannot  reply ! 
Is  the  earth  a  ball  or  a  shell  ?  Is  there  a  Northwest 
passage  and  a  circumpolar  sea  ?  Will  the  magnetic  and 


112  PRINCIPLES. 

planetary  axes  or  the  ecliptic  and  equator  ever  coin 
cide?  Is  electricity  the  same  as  motion,  and  lightning 
as  light ;  or  have  all  the  species  unfolded  from  one 
germ?  Is  the  atomic  or  the  nebular  theory  true,  or  has 
the  beast  a  human  origin  or  a  future  life?  But  such 
questions  stir  a  moderate  curiosity,  in  comparison  with 
these  other  inquiries,  whether  I  am  begotten  and  born 
of  a  greater  than  mortal  thought  and  love,  which  will 
do  right  by  me,  and  answer  all  my  queries  before  I 
decease,  —  in  which  case  I  am  sure  I  can  never  die,  — 
and  justify  the  aspirations  that  have  their  vent  and  bub 
bling  fount  in  a  bosom  whose  jet  does  not  slacken,  but 
gets  more  warm  and  lively  as  I  grow  more  old. 

Science  adds  to  the  uses  of  life,  but  its  prompter 
and  precursor  is  faith ;  for  without  prior  belief  that 
the  world  is  a  form  and  series  of  permanent  relations, 
we  should  lack  all  motive  to  investigation,  and  no  less 
all  reason  for  action ;  for  who,  without  crediting  that 
what  he  discovered  must  abide,  would  think  it  worth  his 
while  to  explore  the  heavens  and  the  earth  ?  The  writer 
to  the  Hebrews  gives  us  a  long  list  —  Abraham  and 
Noah  and  Moses  and  Abel  and  other  sublime  names  — 
of  such  as  proceeded,  without  knowledge,  by  faith. 
How  easily  we  could  make  out  a  modern  score !  By 
faith  Columbus  sailed  for  a  Western  world.  By  faith 
Newton  beheld  in  the  apple  a  little  globe,  and  in  the 
sun,  moon,  and  stars  but  falling  apples.  By  faith 
Franklin  and  Kane  put  forth  after  open  channels  at  the 
frozen  pole.  By  faith  Benjamin  Franklin  lifted  his 
kite  to  the  cloud,  to  verify  a  suspicion  that  lightning 
and  electricity  are  the  same.  By  faith  Morse  foresees 
a  pen  that  reaches  over  land  and  under  sea.  By  faith 


SCIENCE.  113 

Goodyear  predicts  a  substance,  whose  utilities  he  has 
to  guess  at  before  he  can  make  good.  By  faith  Mor 
ton  risks  murder  in  an  operation,  to  learn  if  continued 
life  be  consistent  with  insensibility  to  pain ;  and  ether 
becomes  the  physical  savior  of  mankind.  By  faith 
Leverrier  is  put  on  the  track  of  a  new  planet  from  ob 
served  perturbations  of  the  old.  From  the  same  faith, 
now  laughed  at,  men  will  travel  and  fly  in  the  air  from 
shore  to  shore,  by  and  by. 

Knowledge  has  not  only  its  origin,  but  its  end  in 
faith.  But  for  faith's  ministry  to  the  joyful  exercise 
of  our  moral  and  affectional  nature,  how  imperfect  a 
satisfaction  it  were  to  know  !  Without  the  marvelling, 
which  I  have  heard  called  moonshiny  and  moon-eyed, 
our  perceiving  would  come  to  a  barren  pause.  As  I 
look  from  some  headland,  betwixt  islands,  out  upon  the 
main,  and  detect  that  curve  in  the  planet  which  no 
plain  is  broad  or  smooth  enough  to  hint,  as  the  vast 
ball  rounds  itself  to  my  imagination  beyond  my 
sight,  and  I  think  of  it  as  in  the  stellar  universe 
but  an  insignificant  mote,  the  thrill  comes  not  in  what 
my  eye  comprises,  but  in  what  my  thought  suspects. 
My  transport  is  in  the  inward  launch  into  amazement 
of  my  mind.  I  have  a  lift  which  no  vessel,  heaving  on 
the  surge,  can  feel.  Is  it  said,  Let  the  brute  fear  and 
wonder,  it  is  man's  province  to  know?  I  reply,  Man 
knows  more  than  the  beast,  but  only  to  wonder  more. 
His  astonishment  deepens  and  widens  with  his  survey  ; 
and  one  cause  for  his  hope  of  conscious  personality  after 
death  lies  in  his  judgment  that  no  continuance,  through 
whatever  mortal  obstructions,  can  surprise  him  more 
than  being  and  living  at  all.  The  voyage,  but  that  he 

8 


114  PRINCIPLES. 

has  taken  it,  were  as  incredible  as  any  salvage  from 
the  wreck  !  Shall  I  not.  therefore,  take  myself  as  I  am, 
and  make  an  inventory  of  the  contents  of  my  own 
soul?  If  I  find  a  migrator}'  instinct  in  it,  why  not 
obey  it  like  an  emigrant  bird,  and,  as  did  those  men  of 
old,  "  seek  a  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose  builder 
and  maker  is  God"?  Must  I  justify  my  spiritual 
frame  to  a  syllogistic  expert?  I  should  as  soon  think 
of  making  out  to  his  contentment  my  title  to  a  san 
guine  or  nervous  temperament,  to  the  cubits  of  my 
stature  or  the  color  of  my  eyes.  Let  him  stay  in  his 
phlegm,  and  stoop  to  his  hole  in  the  ground,  to  affirm 
it  must  cover  all !  I  shall  not  be  balked  at  the  dead 
line  because  he  balks.  My  native  instinct  is  to  picture 
and  aspire,  and  to  believe  that  my  canvas  of  a  New 
Jerusalem  means  something,  however  poorly  my  pen 
cil  may  draw.  I  must  value  what  I  know,  as  serving 
for  what  I  would  reach,  like  the  legs  of  a  horse,  wing 
of  a  bird,  or  fin  of  a  fish.  Why  care  for  knowledge  if 
it  be  not  strength  ?  The  end  of  a  man  is  not  a  thought, 
but  an  act ;  as  no  idea,  but  an  ever-evolving  uni 
verse,  is  the  end  of  God.  In  the  Greek  marble  what 
I  admire  is  the  blowing  out  of  Jove's  beard  with  his 
breath !  Every  invention  in  the  arts  of  life  has  sec 
ondary  and  higher  advantage  for  the  mind.  In  itself 
science  is  a  pursuit  and  prosecution,  not  peace.  It  is 
an  unsettled  trial  in  a  moot  court.  How  the  old  the 
ories  are  disturbed  by  new  ones,  —  of  light,  electricity, 
gravitation,  the  tides,  above  all,  of  life,  in  its  nature, 
origin,  and  extent.  Ixion  rolling  his  wheel  was  not 
more  restless,  or  Tantalus  more  athirst.  The  race  we 
run  is  noble,  the  competition  exhilarating;  and  what 


SCIENCE.  115 

riches  drop  by  the  way!  But  no  conclusions  are 
reached.  Peace  passeth  understanding  :  the  Scripture 
is  true !  In  the  motions  of  the  soul  alone  is  rest. 
In  an  organism,  says  Immanuel  Kant,  all  the  means 
are  ends.  We  may  add,  a  spirit  is  that  in  which 
affection  is  satisfaction,  and  flight  is  ease.  Most 
men  are  like  travellers  in  haste  for  some  unseen  point 
ahead.  What  they  see  or  where  they  are,  passes  for 
naught ;  the}7  are  wretched  till  they  arrive  at  the  city, 
mountain,  waterfall,  or  dell.  But  at  last,  with  a  sense 
of  beauty  for  our  eye-salve,  we  discern  Nature's  equality 
in  all  her  parts  ;  that  she  pitches  her  tent  in  no  chosen 
place,  that  land  and  overarching  sky  are  God's  pavil 
ion,  and  we  are  arriving  all  the  time.  He  whose  heart 
is  stayed  on  principle  has  love  for  his  breath,  and, 
conscious  of  rectitude  on  the  journey,  never  leaves  the 
inn.  Heaven  is  not  a  goal,  but  a  way,  which  is  its  own 
object  and  delight. 

Yet  all  material  inventions  unseal  or  illustrate  spir 
itual  things.  If  planetary  perturbations  can  be  ac 
counted  for  only  by  the  action  of  an  unseen  orb,  do  not 
the  perturbations  of  human  life  require  another  world  ? 
Is  not  a  swifter  converse  through  wider  tracks  the 
suggestion  or  prediction  of  the  lightning's  antipodal 
talk  ?  Does  not  the  telephone  hint  that  all  the  extraor 
dinary  and  supernatural  hearings  reported  may  be  nat 
ural  too?  Shall  not  the  phonograph  say  what  a  huge 
record-book  is  the  universe?  You  ma}7  tell  me  I  am 
but  a  blossom  of  matter,  a  handful  of  dust  scooped  out 
of  the  earth.  I  present  you  the  whole  globe,  per  con 
tra,  as  my  camel,  by  this  telephonic  trick,  harnessed 
for  my  idea  or  my  affection  to  ride,  and  kneeling  like 


116  PRINCIPLES. 

llama  or  dromedary  to  lift  the  burden  of  my  thought. 
Shall  the  rider  be  trampled  into  ashes  at  the  end  ?  As 
Rarey  tamed  the  horse,  we  tame  the  orb  with  its  myr 
iad  horse-power.  Paul  Revere  rode  fast ;  Greek  hill 
tops  flashed  out  the  news ;  torches,  passed  from  hand 
to  hand,  have  been  mediums,  balloons  and  carrier- 
pigeons  communicators,  in  peace  and  war.  The  Amer 
ican  Revolutionary  spy  sews  a  letter  into  his  dress,  or 
Stillman,  in  Hungary,  hides  it  in  the  heel  of  his  boot ; 
an  ice-boat  outstrips  the  locomotive ;  and,  more  swift 
and  reticent  errand-bearer,  a  wire  is  now  taught  to  hear 
as  well  as  see.  Particles  of  matter,  or  centres  and 
lines  of  force,  are  our  vessels  and  transportation-com 
panies  ;  and,  suspended  in  air,  career  freight- trains  and 
baggage-cars.  Light,  sight,  sound,  and  hearing  are 
all  motion  ;  motion  is  force  ;  and  force  is  God.  The 
earth  has  shrunk  to  a  spinning-top  or  a  shining  pin  on 
the  floor.  Space  and  time,  made,  as  one  said,  to  keep 
us  apart,  are  annulled  to  bring  us  together.  Our 
voice  goes,  fast  as  our  purpose,  into  an  iron  ear  hun 
dreds  of  miles  long.  There  shall  be  no  secrets ;  all 
nature  is  an  escritoire,  every  drawer  of  which  may  be 
unlocked. 

But  this  is  all  figure.  What  a  better  telephone  is 
that  memory  through  which  come  the  rebuke  and  love 
that  saluted  the  morning  of  our  life !  A  grown  man 
in  my  neighborhood  tells  me  how  fresh  to  him  are  the 
friendly  words  I  spoke  when  he  was  a  little  boy.  The 
ringing  of  the  church-bell  at  Ruel  moves  Napoleon,  the 
powder-stained  captain,  to  tears,  as  its  chime  sets  all 
the  old  belfries  rocking  again.  Once  familiar  spec 
tacles  may  be  far  away ;  but  sounds  are  the  same  as 


SCIENCE.  117 

ever,  from  the  church-tower,  from  the  wind  rattling  the 
panes,  from  the  thunder  crashing  overhead,  so  near, 
into  bolts  of  splendor  and  sheets  of  rain  that  stirred  to 
awe  and  worship  the  boy,  as  over  the  country  road  he 
went  home  from  school.  Hark  to  the  old  intonations  of 
our  kindred,  repeated  fifty  years  after  by  strangers  who 
know  not  why  with  wet  ej'es  we  love  their  persons  so  ! 
I  hear  still  the  neighbors'  chat  in  my  far-away  birth 
place,  and  my  own  voice  in  my  father's  parlor  reciting 
to  them  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  John,  or  Cowper's 
lines  after  his  mother's  funeral,  which  almost  broke  my 
heart,  children  being  often  hurt  by  not  being  under 
stood.  I  seize  the  peculiar  and  exact  accent  in  the 
family  doctor's  laugh  sixty  years  ago,  breezy  and  nasal 
as  it  was,  with  a  strong  New  England  flavor,  more  from 
his  head  than  his  chest  or  throat.  The  brooks  I  played 
by  still  gurgle  with  endless  laughter,  and  the  wooden 
rockers  of  the  chair  with  whose  monotone  my  mother 
hushed  me  to  sleep  resound  har^on  the  sanded  floor. 
The  brass  cannon  stuns  me ;  and  I  yet  shrink  and 
shiver  at  its  sharp  discharge  at  Freeport  Corner,  on  the 
soldiers'  parade,  the  War  of  1812  having  just  passed 
away,  leaving  its  smoky  field-pieces  and  remnants  of 
ammunition  behind.  Commander  and  troop  are  dead, — 

"  Their  bodies  are  dust, 
And  their  good  swords  rust ;  " 

but  I  hear  the  order  given  and  the  stead}^  tramp  of  the 
men.  I  passed  by  the  house  where,  a  young  man,  I  was 
entertained.  Host  and  hostess  were  dead,  their  epitaphs 
moss-grown,  their  children  scattered  whither  I  knew 
not ;  but  the  strains  of  welcome,  as  of  }*ore,  issued  at 


118  PRINCIPLES. 

the  gate.     Where  and  how  shall  the  hospitality  be  re 
turned?     O  upper  friends,  hear  at  least  my  thanks  ! 

So  there  is  not  an  atom  but  answers  to  a  thought. 
Shall  not  the  telephonic  apparatus  end  or  prevent  mis 
understanding,  make  diplomacy  a  conversation,  and 
among  hostile  or  jealous  nations  put  peaceful  greetings 
for  bloody  cartels  ?  The  telephone  is  to  the  criminal  a 
threat.  He  cannot  fly  with  the  lightning,  more  than  a 
dog  can  run  with  the  train.  This  sharp  gossip  of  the 
magnet  he  shall  not  escape.  There  is  a  second  hearing 
as  well  as  a  second  sight.  When  the  voice  was  heard 
from  heaven  saying,  "This  is  my  beloved  Son,"  some 
said  it  thundered,  others  that  an  angel  spake  to  him. 
What  the  voice  was  no  science  more  than  ignorance 
can  decide.  The  man  of  coolest  head  in  Boston  told 
me,  that,  musing  in  his  chair  one  night,  words  came  to 
him  in  distinct  articulation,  "  There  is  another  world." 
What  is  music  but  a  score  which  the  composer  over 
hears,  —  celestial  ha%s  or  voices  from  afar,  like  ord 
nance  at  long  range,  delivering  even  to  deaf  Beethoven 
the  tune  and  to  Mendelssohn  the  "  songs  without 
words "  ?  I  know  not  if  i '  the  cloud  of  witnesses  " 
ever  break  for  us  into  speech.  But  our  j-earning  is 
prophecy,  echoed  by  every  prophet,  that  they  will.  "  I 
thought,"  said  a  mother,  "my  dead  boy  would  speak 
to  me,  and  I  held  my  breath  to  hearken.  As  we  sailed 
over  Lake  Lucerne,  I  believed  if  I  could  but  get  rowed 
on  to  the  horizon,  he  would  appear !  " 

Faith  incites  to  knowledge,  and  knowledge  returns  to 
faith.  We  live  in  a  circle,  if  we  do  not  reason  in  one. 
Faith  and  knowledge  are  alternate  buckets  of  the  water 
of  life.  Could  we  know  absolutely,  we  should  not  be 


SCIENCE.  119 

content  with  knowing !  We  know  but  this,  that  naught 
can  be  quite  known  ;  and  Hegel  can  scarce  persuade  us 
that  "  nothing  is  the  equivalent  of  being  "  For  we  can 
absolutely  love,  trust,  and  hope.  There  is  no  sure  opin 
ion.  The  only  certaint}T  is  in  what  we  feel.  In  us 
more  than  out  of  us  is  the  miracle.  What  sound  so 
strange  as  our  own  recollection !  A  friend  saw  in  a 
store  where  she  went  to  buy  meat  for  her  sick  husband 
a  box  of  pansies,  which  at  once  brought  back  the  face 
and  voice  of  the  woman  who  tended  and  fed  her  in  a 
garden  when  she  was  a  little  girl.  The  reminder  swept 
her  away  from  the  provision-dealer's  stall,  from  her 
present  home,  from  her  gray  hairs  and  the  age  of  the 
world  she  lives  in,  to  the  long-passed  period  and  dis 
tant  spot  where  the  pansies  bloomed  and  the  motherly 
guardian  nourished.  Again  she  saw,  again  she  heard, 
—  form,  feature,  inflection  came  back  ;  lost  in  thought, 
and  her  purchase  suspended,  she  stood  like  a  statue, 
and  worshipped  the  pansies.  Did  God  charge  her  with 
idolatry,  or  was  he  not  more  to  her  in  the  pansies  than 
in  the  sky?  What  metallic  ear,  or  resonant  plate,  or 
resolution  of  sound  into  motion,  is  so  marvellous  as  this 
phonography  *)f  the  soul  ?  The  surprise  in  the  phono 
graph  is  that  pitch  and  tone  can  be  printed  in  and  re 
verberate  from  so  small  a  space,  like  the  Lord's  Prayer 
on  a  gold  dollar.  But  how  much  finer  is  the  entry  in 
and  recovery  from  the  human  brain  !  The  old  accents, 
gracious  or  peevish,  the  upward  or  downward  slides  of 
the  voice,  in  what  fac-similes  sharper  than  coins  from 
the  mint,  come  back  through  all  the  confusions  of 
scores  of  years  !  This  rejoinder  of  brain  and  nerve  is 
more  delicately  accurate  than  the  invisible  tracery  of 


120  PRINCIPLES. 

the  phonograph  needle.  It  shames  all  lace- work  in  its 
transcript  on  this  bone-protected  cerebral  inner  curve, 
and  in  these  living  molecules  which  plrysiologists  num 
ber  by  millions,  as  if  there  were  one  to  store  ever}"  single 
impression  and  pack  it  so  close  !  The  merchant's  blot- 
ting-book  to  cop}T  letters  is  not,  to  a  comma,  so  cor 
rect.  What  magazines  of  knowledge,  beyond  treasuries 
of  nations  and  exchequers  of  kings,  are  contained  some 
how  within  these  arched  walls  we  call  our  pericranium  ; 
in  the  head  of  a  scholar  and  even  a  numskull,  —  for  a 
fool  has  more  wit  and  information  in  his  gray  lobes 
and  the  minor  receiving  ganglia  than  could  be  engraven 
on  Egyptian  obelisks  or  dinted  into  the  layers  of  the 
globe.  There  is  no  understood  or  calculable  length  of 
time  to  which,  on  the  revolving  cylinder  of  tin-foil,  like 
a  bonded  warehouse,  the  soft,  imperceptible  marks  that 
imprison  syllables  will  not  keep  and  cry  out.  Though 
the  thin  sheet  were  transferred  to  another  instrument  a 
thousand  miles  away,  the}'  will  return  like  a  resurrec 
tion  from  the  dead.  But  finer- woven  }Tet  in  the  human 
organism  is  a  film,  with  all  our  declarations  and  prom 
ises  under  lock  and  key,  however  long  it  be  before  the 
bolted  wards  be  sprung.  Is  this  film,  toe,  transferable 
from  our  present  embodiment  so  smooth  and  round? 
As  the  cranked  cylinder  turns,  we  feel  the  membrane  of 
sensibility  quiver  and  the  needle  of  moral  feeling  prick, 
as  though  a  live  metaphor  were  in  the  revolution  and 
recitation  of  the  senseless  tool.  How  surely  in  the 
sphere  of  our  own  being  we  cany  the  heaven  and  hell 
we  so  superstitiously  locate  and  map  out  in  space ! 
What  a  mocking-bird  is  in  our  heart!  "Those  were 
his  very  words,"  said  a  young  woman  of  what  had  been 


SCIENCE.  121 

spoken  by  a  tempting  man.  Must  they  not  come  back 
to  him,  as  with  the  unpaid  bill  of  a  bad  debt  in  their 
hand?  And  if  they  touch  on  u  the  fear  of  something 
after  death,"  shall  it  be  a  ghost-story  to  frighten  chil 
dren  with?  Let  the  vital  phonograph  answer  as  it 
shall  work  !  "To  know  my  deed,  'twere  best  not  know 
myself,"  says  Macbeth  in  the  pla}'.  But  our  deed  is 
web  and  woof  of  our  self.  It  is-  more  than  any  flight 
of  fane}',  though  it  were  Homer's  or  Shakspeare's.  It 
makes  our  personal  identity  ;  and  the  shuttle  is  our  will. 
We  are  an  incarnate  responsive  liturg}r  for  ourselves,  and 
from  our  own  lips  will  come  the  collect  or  the  curse. 

Telegram  is  the  lightning's  message.  What  is  the 
Bible  but  a  body  of  phonograms  ?  In  it  are  cruel  laws 
and  barbarous  edicts,  bulls,  or  bulletins  of  fanatical 
tribes  and  savage  men.  But  there  are  other  proclama 
tions,  precious  be}-ond  negations  of  unbelief  or  enc}Tcli- 
cals  of  popes,  and  so  matching  the  wants  and  dumb 
predictions  of  our  nature,  that  only  from  the  breath  of 
God  could  they  be  blown.  Modulated  by  a  living  in 
strument,  they  became  audible  to  instruct  and  console 
millions  of  mankind. 

There  is  a  background  of  our  being  and  a  foreground. 
The 'background  is  God  and  the  foreground  is  heaven. 
But  we  know  in  order  that  we  may  do.  If  a  thought 
be  the  ancestor,  an  act  is  the  heir.  Knowledge  is  but 
clothing  and  armor  for  the  will.  It  is  building-material 
for  character,  like  timber  for  our  house  or  ship.  Of  the 
great  questions,  Whence,  How,  Whither,  Wherefore,  and 
What,  the  positivist  affirms  we  can  deal  but  with  the 
last.  But  ideas  on  the  other  four  must  throw  light  by 
which  alone  the  fifth  can  be  clearly  shown ;  else  his 


122  PRINCIPLES. 

knowledge  is  only  skin-deep.  A  dog  with  his  bone  and 
kennel  knows  what  is  what;  and  what  is  human  life  more 
than  a  kennel  and  a  bone,  if  confined  to  the  sensible 
facts?  We  understand  superficially,  but  we  are  moral  to 
the  core.  How  much  less  we  are  hurt  by  ignorance  of 
nature  than  by  a  misunderstanding  of  each  other  or  of 
ourselves !  In  delicate  conditions  of  health  or  of  ner 
vous  apprehension,  how  a  sentiment  has  power  of  life 
and  death  a  thousand  times  oftener  than  the  sheriff 
executes  doom !  The  fable  of  the  basilisk,  with  its  fatal 
glance,  is  a  sober  truth.  We  live  on  a  justice  of  which 
no  law  on  the  statute-book  is  sponsor.  AVe  commit 
crimes  of  which  no  jury  can  convict.  We  exercise  a 
goodness  which  it  would  be  insult  to  pay  with  an}T  para 
dise.  It  is  its  own  reward.  In  a  lively  French  play 
an  interlocutor  satirizes  that  woman,  as  he  calls  her,  with 
the  scales  in  her  hand  on  the  top  of  the  court-house ; 
saying,  he  observes  there  is  nothing  in  them.  The  weights 
of  equity  in  this  perpetual  counterbalance  of  existence 
will  be  nowhere  if  not  in  our  deeds,  which  are  born  of 
our  choice. 

The  experimenter  with  telegraph,  telephone,  or  pho 
nograph  can  elect  what  he  will  make  the  pen  or  mouth 
of  his  implement  speak.  Into  the  little  opening,  no 
larger  than  a  lady's  ear,  he  may  spout  an  oration,  reel 
off  rhymes,  hum  a  tune,  or  wind  a  horn.  But  his  arbi 
trary  decision  ends  with  that.  The  undulations  carry 
the  message.  It  is  an  infinitesimal  parcel,  tied  up  and 
compacted  in  the  airy  bubbles  or  balloons.  The  vessel 
or  vesicle  goes  undisturbed  though  a  thunderbolt  strike 
the  building  or  an  earthquake  rock  the  ground  ;  and,  a 
century  after,  a  touch  at  the  handle  would  return  the 


SCIENCE.  123 

vocal  letter-missive.  Nothing  could  hinder,  short  of  a 
violence  that  should  destroy  the  impression  or  the  ma 
chine.  But  the  mental  imprint  no  such  interference 
can  annul.  You  determine,  at  the  telegraph  office,  your 
communication.  Halloo  after  the  lightning,  will  your 
cry  fetch  the  order  back  ?  You  can  only  add  the  arrow 
of  another  despatch !  So  the  voluntary  passes  over 
into  the  involuntary  in  our  breast.  Let  us  come  into 
the  elective  state,  and  get  out  of  the  gusty  latitudes,  the 
Cape  Horn  and  Bay  of  Biscay  of  capricious  inclination 
and  selfish  passion  !  The  region  of  choice  is  safe  ;  for 
no  man  ever  chose  to  be  a  drunkard  or  profligate.  He 
was  swept  into  villany  by  desire  he  had  lost  power  to 
control.  They  choose  well  who  are  able  to  choose  at 
aU. 

There  is  necessity  for  us.  We  admire  a  quality  in 
man  or  woman  as  we  do  the  landscape.  It  is  involun 
tary,  but,  O  Lord,  if  it  be  wrong,  please  kill  me  at  once, 
for  it  is  necessary  in  my  own  nature  so  long  as  I  live. 
It  rids  me  q£  all  that  is  low  in  myself,  as  we  pra}'  the 
"angels  ever  bright  and  fair"  to  take  us,  in  our  ora 
torio  song.  The  navigator,  long  buffeted  by  the  storm 
and  by  shifting  squally  weather,  is  glad  to  get  into  the 
trade-wind.  Right  permanent  direction  of  our  appetites 
and  longings  is  the  trade-wind  of  the  mind.  Still  must 
the  pilot  hold  his  tiller ;  and  we  must  be  electors  in  the 
endless  sessions  and  questions  that  are  put  to  vote  in 
our  own  breast.-  That  record  is  the  only  one  we  must 
for  ever  read.  We  say  of  a  person,  he  is  a  man  of 
one  book.  This  inward  bible  is  for  us  all.  How  the 
preacher  mistakes,  to  say  our  acts  are  irrevocable,  when 
in  the  endless  revoking  all  compensation  or  retribution 
consists ! 


124  PRINCIPLES. 

Science  deals  with  the  universe  only  in  one  aspect  or 
part.  The  president  of  a  scientific  association  sums  up 
its  scope  in  "the  registration  of  facts  or  phenomena 
under  uniform  laws."  But  there  is  a  manifold  expe 
rience  not  reckonable  as  phenomenon  or  fact.  It  is 
a  state,  perhaps  an  ecstasy  or  exaltation  of  mind. 
Scientific  men  would  bring  whatever  is  or  transpires 
under  the  head  of  material  for  scientific  estimate  and 
report.  But  there  are  operations  of  human  nature  too 
vast  and  elusive  to  be  so  published  or  surveyed.  There 
are  revelations,  visions,  and  extraordinary  CQinmunions 
with  God.  Doubtless  there  may  be  a  philosophy  of 
the  soul  in  all  its  conditions  and  acts.  But  it  is  no 
science,  properly  and  technically  so  called.  Only  by 
being  overstrained  can  the  word  science  be  applied.  It 
is  a  not  unhappy  doom  for  some  persons  to  consider 
and  study  the  passions  by  which  they  are  moved.  Such 
an  observer  Goethe  was,  who  could  not  rest  till  he  had 
printed  his  transport  in  Werther,  Wilhelm  Meister,  or 
Faust.  No  one  ever  felt  or  knew  love  more  deeply  than 
he.  His  information  was  accurate  and  his  tidings  sin 
cere.  He  may  not  have  come  by  his  knowledge  hon 
estly  always.  But,  after  Shakspeare's  women,  his  are 
best,  and  he  offers  some  varieties  be}'ond  the  English 
dramatist's  survey,  doing  more  justice  to  certain  forms 
of  lowly  maiden  life.  But  how  he  would  scoff  at  any 
scientist's  imputation  that  he  had  sounded  all  the  depths 
of  this  ocean  of  human  feeling  with  his  deep-sea  line ! 
Dear  companionship  bids  knowledge  stand  aside,  wait 
as  a  servant,  look  on  apart,  and  own  it  cannot  fathom 
or  comprehend  the  blessed  intercourse.  Darwin,  making 
out  his  theory,  tells  us  what  in  his  own  infants  he  has 


SCIENCE.  125 

observed ;  but  his  evolution  could  no  more  exhibit  all 
that  was  in  them  than  Newton's  gravitation  can  spread 
before  us  the  contents  of  the  stars.  Science  knows  not 
commencement.  Only  procedure  it  stints.  The  puz 
zle  by  which  it  is  perpetually  balked  is  the  origin  of  life. 
Science  is  finite  in  its  aim ;  and  life  is  infinite  in  its 
relations,  in  the  least  mite  that  stirs.  Semitic  genius 
gives  us  the  sentence,  immortal  and  sublime  :  "  In  the  be 
ginning  God  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth."  It  is  an 
unscientific  statement,  which  no  school  or  academy  can 
accept.  Every  literary  author  confesses  the  inadequacy 
of  his  pen  to  the  vital  secret,  which  an  atom  manifests 
and  which  all  creation  is.  "  Why  leave  the  Christ  out 
of  your  list  of  Representative  Men  ?  "  I  asked  my  friend. 
"Because,"  he  answered,  "it  takes  too  much  strength 
of  constitution  to  put  him  in."  We  may  miscall  our  in 
spirations  and  emotions  occurrences,  if  we  will ;  but  no 
clerk  can  take  account  of  their  stock.  The}^  range  im 
mensely  beyond  the  student's  eye,  as  the  shifting  scenes 
and  live  tablets  of  the  cit}T  transcend  the  watchman's 
beat.  No  explorer  has  sailed  up  these  streams  to  the 
fountain-head,  and  no  coast-surveyor  by  triangulation 
has  measured  these  shores.  Whoever  loves  navigates, 
like  Columbus,  into  latitudes  and  longitudes  before 
unknown ;  and  whoever  imagines  transcends.  When 
toward  my  headland  the  Atlantic  dips  its  bowl,  I  have 
other  and  more  interesting  occupation  with  it  than  to 
weigh  its  tons  of  tide.  I  lose  the  beauty  if  I  set  myself 
to  analyzing  the  beams  of  the  day.  When  what  as 
tronomers  call  the  Milky  Way,  but  which  is  rather  to  the 
eye  the  thinnest  veil  of  gauze  ever  woven,  hangs  athwart 
the  face  of  the  southern  sky,  it  is  curious  to  learn  or 


126  PRINCIPLES. 

remember  it  is  made  of  worlds  round  and  solid  like  the 
earth  and  sun ;  but  I  would  not  know,  if  I  could,  how 
many  they  are  or  how  big.  Like  Moses,  I  see  the  skirt 
of  God's  garment ;  and,  like  Kepler  and  Linnaeus,  be 
holding  the  same  laws  above  and  below,  I  mark  him 
passing  by ;  and  I  exchange  the  arithmetic  that  would 
reduce  the  spectacle  to  bushel  and  3~ardstick,  for  a  proph 
ecy  and  a  song.  When  I  note  the  little  beach-birds 
hopping  so  safely  in  the  billows'  edge,  I  think  of  One 
who  makes  them  so  fearless  and  at  home,  without  whom 
the  sparrow  neither  falls  nor  flies  ;  and  I  have  to  try 
hard  not  to  hate  those  men  who  are  after  them  with 
their  murderous  guns  !  As,  lately,  the  declining  sun 
shone  under  the  ragged  line  of  the  retiring  storm,  some 
sea-birds  rose  over  the  sea,  half  flying  and  half  floating 
on  the  breeze,  that  still  briskly  stirred.  How  their 
buoyancy  occupied  the  sky  !  Animated  bits,  as  of  pure 
white  paper  scattered  from  some  hand  that  could  throw 
them  so  far,  with  idle  freedom  and  the  luxury  of  motion, 
they  wavered  up  and  down.  They  stretched  landwards, 
or  sought  the  offing  anon.  They  revelled  in  the  wind 
which,  with  effortless  pinion,  they  beat.  It  seemed  to 
me  as  if  the  firmament  was  stretched  and  the  gale  blew 
for  them  alone.  It  was  unscientific,  but  was  it  wrong, 
when  my  gazing  fancy  turned  them  into  images  of  hu 
man  life  and  love  ?  These  images  have  their  atmosphere, 
which  they,  with  other  plumage,  strike  in  their  flight. 
Their  pinions  lift  them  toward  the  heavens  for  a  while, 
on  that  gale  which  mortality  is.  But  the  wind  is  more 
than  the  wing,  and  when  that  is  folded,  will  still  spring 
up.  Shall  not  they  be  fledged  again?  The  soul  is  a  mi 
gratory  bird :  it  has  another  atmosphere,  and  can  well 


SCIENCE.  127 

afford,  at  its  moulting  season,  to  let  the  feathers  drop  it 
is  sustained  b}T  in  time  ;  not  doubting  it  shall  have  new 
outfit  and  find  softer  climes,  and  continue  to  soar. 

In  the  wide  fpaean  for  science  I  would  join,  were  it 
not  loud  enough  without  my  voice.  The  orchestral 
conductor  discovers  at  once  and  summons  to  its  dut}r 
the  too  faint  instrument  in  his  band ;  compared  with 
the  thirst  for  knowledge,  would  not  our  leader  decide 
that  the  spirit  of  a  just  charity  is  feeble  in  our  time  ? 
History,  at  least,  grows  more  tolerant.  How  it  reha 
bilitates  persons  long  disreputable  and  under  the  ban ! 
We  are  thinking  not  so  ill  as  we  did  of  Roman 
emperors  and  Romish  popes.  The  verdict  depends  not 
alone  on  the  information  of  the  censor,  but  on  his  dis 
position  and  point  of  view.  Ernest  Renan,  as  large 
and  liberal  as  he  is  scholarly  and  exact,  comes  to  rescue 
the  reputation  even  of  the  Empress  Faustina,  wife  of 
Marcus  Aurelius,  from  the  cloud  of  disgrace  that  has 
covered  it,  without  moving,  for  many  an  age ;  and  her 
figure  now  forms,  under  his  pen,  not  as  a  traitress  and 
adulteress,  but  only  with  free  manners  as  well  as  splen 
did  charms  ;  one  whom  the  solemn  synod  of  gray- 
beard  courtiers,  that  the  irreproachable  Emperor  had 
gathered  about  him,  misjudged,  while  the  handsome 
Queen  always  kept  his  own  honor  as  well  as  had  his 
heart.  The  very  ignominy  burnt  into  a  man  or  wo 
man  may  become  a  glory  and  encaustic  painting  of 
their  worth.  The  prints  of  the  nails  in  the  hands  and 
feet  of  Jesus  were  stigmata  once  ;  but  the  stigmas  have 
become  points  of  love  and  admiration  for  the  world. 
His  very  countiy,  France,  qualifies  Renan  not  to  be 
harsh  on  what  was  gay  and  unrestrained,  and  possibly 


128  PRINCIPLES. 

innocent,  at  Rome.  He  gives  at  least,  as  the  old  royal 
shade  sits  to  him,  the  benefit  of  the  doubt ;  and  ob 
serving  how  merciless  moral  decisions  are  rendered  by 
puritanic  notions  in  our  day,  one  inclinqs  to  take  part 
with  the  antiquarian  student,  not  more  generous  than 
he  is  deep  and  keen.  Since  the  daughter  of  Hcrodias 
danced  off  John  the  Baptist's  head,  all  dancing  has 
been,  with  some,  an  unpardonable  sin,  which  David's 
performance  before  the  ark  fails  to  bless  ;  and  I  have 
known  an  excellent  Doctor  of  Divinity  to  scowl  on  the 
young  girl  that  came  back  to  his  house  rather  late  from 
the  ball.  Let  us  have  mercy !  Guns  are  rifled  to 
whirl  without  bias  the  bullet  true  to  its  aim.  Could 
we  so  rifle  our  minds,  the  process  were  of  more  worth ! 
The  chief  science  were  equity  to  those  whose  course 
or  opinion  is  against  our  own.  It  does  not  come  with 
emancipation  from  superstitious  creeds.  None  fling 
harder  words  at  their  opponents,  or  at  each  other  when 
they  disagree,  than  those  from  whom  every  lending  of 
tradition  has  been  cast  away.  Robert  Browning  gives 
to  Bishop  Blougram  the  best  of  the  argument  with  the 
sceptic ;  and  it  is  not  certain  that,  if  the  dissenter's 
view  be  larger,  his  virtue  is  more  safe.  Luther's  wife 
inquires  of  her  husband  why  the  family  pra}*ers,  under 
his  brave  protest,  are  losing  warmth.  Mr.  Lecky  finds 
that,  in  taking  off  the  strain  of  a  fanatical  faith,  some 
risk  is  run.  May  we  be  so  rational  in  our  speculation 
as  to  lose  the  earnestness  of  our  life?  Renan,  dis 
coursing  of  the  degradation  of  language,  says  an  ever 
lasting  balancing  appears  to  be  the  law  of  human 
things.  We  must  have  either  nobility  for  a  small  num 
ber,  he  declares,  or  vulgarity  for  all.  But  a  conclusion 


SCIENCE.  129 

so  sad  must  be  incorrect.  As  the  entire  level  of  con 
tinents  has  been  lifted  above  the  sea,  so  the  tribes  that 
inhabit  them  are  raised.  There  is  small  danger  that 
the  mass  of  men  will  be  scientific  to  excess !  But 
humanity  becomes  deformit}^  in  such  as  are  scientific 
alone. 

Centralization  is  better  than  secession  in  the  state, 
and  specialization  disintegrates  if  it  do  not  serve  gen 
eralization.  Mountains  and  seas  cannot  become  private 
propert}^  Nothing  grand  in  nature  can  be  marked  off. 
It  is  churlish  for  the  proprietor  to  warn  back,  with  his 
dog  or  man  or  bolted  gate,  the  human  race  from 
Niagara,  Mount  Washington,  or  the  Atlantic  shore  ;  and 
there  is  no  appropriation  or  private  interpretation  of 
truth.  The  towns  on  the  coast  insist  on  retaining  the 
old  beaches  and  ocean- walks ;  and  that  is  no  precious 
possession  or  invention  in  which  the  whole  humanit}^  is 
not  concerned.  What  a  degraded  menial  is  the  light 
ning  if  it  carry  only  a  sharp  bargain  or  bloody  threat ! 
If  the  wires  be  not  busy  with  worthy  errands,  how  use 
less  is  their  stretch  and  how  idle  is  the  nimble  Ariel  they 
can  command  !  The  fatalist  Turk,  whose  tropic  clime 
has  never  been  reflected  in  any  sunny  face  of  his  own, 
and  whose  crescent  has  become  a  waning  moon,  as  he 
curses  with  immobility  the  population  he  rules  and  the 
soil  he  tills,  "  means  but  that  he  is  lazy  when  he  sa}Ts  that 
Allah  is  great ! "  As  an  abstraction,  without  application, 
how  impertinent  it  is  to  speak  of  loving  the  truth  !  Is  it 
an  affection  like  Zerah  Colburn's  for  the  multiplication- 
table  ?  It  is  barren  if  it  would  stop  even  in  Isaac  New 
ton's  contemplation  of  the  stars  !  Can  it  hover  over 
a  collection  of  manuscripts,  coins,  or  fossil  remains? 

9 


130  PRINCIPLES. 

What  would  it  signify  to  fill  the  Patent  Office  with  dis 
coveries  of  no  profit  to  mankind?  Science  must  be 
touched  with  feeling  to  be  welcome ;  yet  we  must  not 
doubt  a  benefit  in  all  we  find  out,  and  an  object  in 
whatever  mankind  pursues.  My  atheistic  friend,  gaz 
ing  at  the  piles  of  theology  in  the  British  Librarj*,  des 
cants  to  the  showman  on  such  a  monument  of  waste. 
But,  as  the  bees  have  not  misspent  their  day  aj  their 
yellow  masonry,  though  the  time  come  when  no  more 
honey  is  held  in  their  wax,  and  as  the  coral-insects  do  not 
throw  away  themselves  and  their  time,  as  the}7  mortar 
together,  under  the  sea,  the  solid  banks  that  shall  look 
white  and  ruddy  as  they  at  last  shore  up  the  world, 
and  edge  the  continents  with  cities  of  men,  so  all  faith 
ful  study,  of  things  human  or  divine,  shall  be  a  stay 
for  civilization  and  some  time  see  the  light,  even  if 
afterward,  under  the  roll  of  centuries,  it  crumble  and 
disappear.  The  mind  is  instinctively  wistful  concern 
ing  itself,  and  would  know  its  origin  and  end.  AVhile 
it  drinks  at  whatever  spring  its  curiosity  may  find  to 
slake  its  thirst,  who  is  this  that,  in  the  name  of  free 
dom,  would  drug  the  cup  ?  There  is  no  opiate  that  can 
put  intellect  to  sleep. 

Science  should  be  equivalent  to  knowledge.  But  the 
explosion  of  a  heap  of  biblical  assumptions  or  misin 
terpretations  has  aggravated  and  sped  materialism, 
which  is  the  drift  of  this  generation,  to  limit  knowledge 
to  the  information  which  the  senses  import  into  the 
mind.  There  is  a  knowledge  of  things,  or  rather  only 
a  little  knowledge  about  any  thing.  But  there  is,  too, 
a  knowledge  of  ideas  which  are  not  things,  a  knowledge 
of  beaut}*  which  is  but  a  spirit  expressed,  and  a  knowl- 


SCIENCE.  131 

edge  of  persons  who  are  not  things  ;  and  in  comparison 
with  this  knowledge,  all  that  comes  by  weight  and  meas 
ure,  and  can  be  circumscribed  in  any  definite  time  and 
space,  is  shallow  and  of  little  worth.  Do  I  not  know 
nry  friend,  for  whom  I  have  no  formula?  The  faculty 
for  spiritual  and  personal  knowledge  is  compound,  like 
the  instrument  with  its  apparatus  in  an  observatory ; 
but  its  result  is  simple,  and  not  ephemeral,  like  all  the 
statements  of  physical  science.  We  know  Justice,  but 
never  saw  her  scales  ;  she  is  known  by  that  conscience 
in  us  which  is  her  even  beam.  We  know  love  not 
by  an  observation,  but  an  unsought  impression,  and  by 
that  answer  in  our  own  breast  but  for  which  another's 
affection  would  be  like  the  Indian  Standing  Bear's 
speech  without  an  interpreter.  Paul  writes  about 
"  knowing  the  love  of  Christ."  Was  it  Christ's  love 
for  the  disciple,  or  the  disciple's  for  him?  It  was 
both ;  for  the  love  was  bigger  than  the  Master  or  fol 
lower,  as  the  love  betwixt  any  two  is  bigger  than  we 
and  all  mankind,  and  uses  us  and  every  one  for  its  own 
ends.  We  know  by  certain  tests  how  much  pressure 
or  strain  our  building  materials  will  bear  in  an  iron 
girder,  steel  span,  or  granite  arch.  We  know  the  en 
durance  of  our  companion  as  well,  but  may  have  no 
calculation  of  its  strength  and  reach.  If  it  be  a  divine 
property,  the  gravitation  of  the  globe  cannot  crush  it  or 
the  roll  of  years  tire  it  out.  Jesus  knew  God,  as  any 
saint  may,  with  transcendent  knowledge. 

But  how  know  aught  of  the  future,  in  the  way  relig 
ious  people  pretend  ?  ' '  Do  you  know  any  thing  about 
it?"  asked  the  sick  man,  as  an  orthodox  saint  talked 
to  him  about  heaven.  Does  not  the  scientist  know  that 


132  PRINCIPLES. 

an  Alpine  glacier  will,  though  imperceptibly,  slip  down 
the  mountain  gorge  ;  that  the  boat  or  log  in  the  rapids 
of  Niagara  will  be  swept  over  the  brink  ;  that  a  partic 
ular  plant  or  tree,  and  no  other,  will  come  of  this  or 
that  seed  ;  and,  by  the  law  of  heredity,  a  certain  sort  of 
parent  will  propagate  children  of  his  or  her  own  kind  ? 
Is  not  all  this  knowledge  not  only  of  the  present,  but 
of  what  is  to  come  ?  I  know  that  he  who  drinks  and 
drabs  is  going  to  hell,  and  that  he  who  joyfully  gives 
his  life  for  others  is  going  to  heaven,  as  much  as  I 
know  that  the  congregation  on  the  steps  is  coming  in, 
or  the  boy,  with  his  books  and  slate  under  his  arm,  is 
going  to  school.  Things  follow  their  tendencies  ;  what 
do  we  all  know  better  than  that  ?  The  prophet  and  his 
prophecy  are  possible  and  true  by  virtue  of  this  law 
and  fact.  But  heaven  is  not  a  matter  of  chronology,  or 
bit  of  territory,  beyond  the  tomb,  staked  out.  It  is  a 
state  of  mind  with  a  mortgage  on  paradise  which  eter 
nity  alone  can  pay.  The  athlete  knows  he  can  leap 
over  a  ditch ;  and  a  completely  developed  soul  knows 
it  can  jump  across  the  yawning  chasm  of  the  grave, 
though  it  drop  its  garment  by  the  way.  Business  men 
proceed  on  the  principle  that  causes  produce  effects ; 
and  if  matter  originated  mind,  or  the  impersonal 
brought  forth  personality,  it  would  be  in  violation  of 
the  law  that  from  the  lower  the  higher  cannot  come. 
Stories  of  bodily  resurrection  are  invented  for  such  as 
cannot  know  their  immortality  in  the  lift  and  rapture 
of  their  powers.  When  Raphael  makes  the  figures  of 
Jesus,  Moses,  and  Elias  float  as  if  a  wind  blew  their  rai 
ment  up,  we  credit  the  transfiguration,  because  we  all 
have  seasons  of  inward  ascension,  in  which  we  know 


SCIENCE.  133 

we  are  like  balloons  struggling  at  their  last  cords,  held 
back  from  glorj*  but  for  a  time.  If  we  have  such  relig 
ious  knowledge  that  heaven  and  hell  are  but  harvest 
ings  of  a  crop  which  in  wet  or  drought,  cold  or  heat, 
can  never  fail,  then  where,  in  what  school,  public  or 
private  or  parochial,  and  under  whatever  auspices  of 
Church  or  State,  should  it  not  be  taught?  By  what  right 
do  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  which  are  but  the 
bare  language  of  knowledge,  take  precedence  or  prior 
importance  to  knowledge  itself  ?  Can  we  get  out  of 
the  atmosphere,  or  go  where  we  shall  have  no  need  of 
light  and  water  and  ground,  or  where  the  attractions 
of  nature  are  not  obeyed?  Even  there  we  could  not 
escape  God,  or  be  rid  of  the  hold  of  his  law. 


134  PRINCIPLES. 


V. 
ART. 

THE  human  mind  has  long  refused  the  pre-eminent 
claim  of  art  in  its  "  court  of  common  pleas,"  and 
estops  it  still,  through  a  superstition  as  to  the  sacred- 
ness,  above  all  transformations  by  industry,  of  the  crude 
matter  of  the  globe.  Thus,  in  the  name  of  religion,  is 
aggravated  among  us  that  materialism  of  which  artists 
from  Europe  complain.  But  that  avarice  of  gain,  which 
is  half  our  worship,  ends  in  a  rude  shock  when,  with  the 
keen  logic  of  Mammon,  our  clerks  pilfer  bonds  from  the 
precious  little  trunks  so  tempting  to  their  hands,  and 
when  we  ourselves  municipally  illustrate  the  swindling 
we  reprobate,  as  we  "  set  a  thief  to  catch  a  thief,"  com 
pound  with  felony,  and  bait  our  trap  for  a  criminal  with 
a  crime.  Art,  in  its  noble  sense  and  with  its  superior 
joy,  has  use  to  lure  us  away  from  mean  delights  ;  for  we 
do  not  seem,  with  all  our  churches,  to  be  made  honest 
by  religion  alone.  Sorely  we  need,  and  heartity  should 
hail,  that  truer  interpretation  of  nature  which  presents 
the  world  but  as  a  block  for  us  to  shape,  as  a  father 
throws  a  bit  of  wood  to  a  boy  for  him  to  cut  out  his 
whistle  or  boat.  The  Menai  Straits  bridge,  the  Mont 
Cenis  tunnel,  the  New  York  wharves  on  the  North  and 
East  rivers,  the  pontooning  of  the  deep  with  a  thou 
sand  steamers,  and  the  driving  of  locomotive  trains  to 


ART.  135 

mountain-tops,  are  not  an  accretion,  excrescence,  or 
parasite-growth,  but  an  increase  and  extension  of  the 
world,  like  the  chasing  and  incrustation  from  which  some 
precious  substance  gets  half  its  worth.  The  broken 
flower-pot  in  a  poor  man's  window  has  a  sentimental 
value  which  the  loam  could  not  compare  with  before  it 
revolved  on  the  potter's  wheel ;  and  the  plant  itself,  pro 
duced  from  many  crossings,  is  a  work  of  art,  as  also  is 
the  enormous  horse,  of  Dutch  breed,  in  a  London  dray. 
Is  not  man  himself  a  cultivated  animal  ?  Nothing  is 
left  of  all  that  was  in  Noah's  ark ;  and  the  ark  is  no 
more  behind  a  Cunarder  or  Baltimore  clipper  than  all 
its  biped  or  quadruped  contents  lag  after  the  living 
forms  of  to-day.  Piety  consists  not  in  letting  Nature 
have  the  upper  hand,  but  in  getting  the  weather-gauge 
of  her ;  and  when  one  carries  his  respect  for  her  so  far 
as  to  say  we  speak  of  weeds  only  because  we  know  not 
their  uses,  his  worship  takes  a  low  flight.  Man's  voca 
tion  is  to  exalt  the  earth-maker's  work  in  degrees  with 
out  end,  as  from  a  tree  we  get  timber,  from  the  timber 
staves,  from  the  staves  a  powder-cask,  from  the  powder- 
cask  a  painted  jar.  Is  not  the  Arch  of  Titus  at  Rome 
worth  more  than  its  tons  avoirdupois  of  stone  or  square 
rood  of  ground,  as  the  history  of  Judaea  nestles  in  its  en 
gravings  and  hangs  on  its  walls,  while  the  procession  of 
the  golden  candlestick  lights  up  its  interior  space  ?  Not 
in  the  rough  planet,  but  its  tidings,  are  we  concerned ; 
and  as  emotion  stirs  the  preacher  or  painter,  words  and 
colors  are  thrown  up  like  waves  of  the  sea.  Magni 
tude  is  nothing  ;  spirit  is  all.  There  are  great  heads  on 
medals  which  are  very  small.  The  pleasure  from  a  large 
landscape  or  a  little  picture,  said  our  Hunt,  is  the  same. 


136  PRINCIPLES. 

Has  conscience  any  place  in  art?  When  Corot  said, 
about  his  own  picture,  "Now  I  must  make  some  air 
among  the  branches  for  the  birds  to  fly  through,"  was 
it  not  a  just  intent  ?  When  caught  with  his  comrades 
in  a  storm,  he  said,  "  Let  us  go  in-doors  and  paint,  then 
we  can  make  what  weather  we  please,"  was  there  no 
moral  sense  for  improving  the  time  ?  The  truth  of  his 
tory,  as  well  as  the  requisitions  of  art,  suffers  not  the 
tragic  in  its  pictured  drama  to  be  quite  left  out  among 
its  shows  of  delight.  "Crown  of  Thorns,"  "Cal 
vary,"  "  Descent  from  the  Cross,"  and  "Entombment," 
as  well  as  "Annunciation,"  "  Conception,"  and  "  Resur 
rection,"  must  have  place.  "  Laocoon  "  and  the  "  Greek 
Slave"  the  chisel  must  give  us,  with  the  "Mercury" 
and  "Apollo."  Beethoven,  in  music,  must  add  an 
iron  string  to  Mozart's  soft  and  silken  chords.  My 
friend  objects  to  Goethe's  "Faust"  as  a  painful  book, 
and  to  Browning's  * '  Paracelsus  "  as  a  wolfish  plot ;  but 
the  poets  had  to  write  their  veracious  tales. 

One  modern  people  seems  especially  chosen  to  minis 
ter  to  our  hunger  and  thirst  for  art.  A  national  genius 
for  it  belongs  to  the  French  alone.  "In  the  bellow 
ing  of  battle,"  says  the  Roman  historian,  "the  laws 
are  dumb."  But,  despite  war  and  cholera,  wasted 
Adneyards  and  inundated  streams,  how  these  modern 
Gauls,  descendants  of  the  old  Romans,  will  pla}'  and 
paint !  If  the  Asiatic  plague  comes,  they  set  it  as  an 
actor  on  the  stage.  Gay  and  beautiful  France,  we,  as 
in  compassion  for  a  butterfly  folk,  call  their  land.  But 
their  thin  booth  stands  solid  as  Cyclopean  architecture, 
or  like  a  Coliseum  in  every  town.  The  sketchers  from 
their  studios  swarm  to  the  crisis  of  every  scene.  They 


ART.  137 

make  bee-lines  to  Cordillera  ranges,  to  Chinese  famines, 
volcanic  eruptions,  and  dead  popes.  The  Illustration, 
a  newspaper  in  Paris,  will. have  our  civil  war  and  the 
last  ro}Tal  progress  in  India  on  its  luminous  page,  and 
relate  all  contemporar}T  annals  with  a  photographer's 
report  and  an  etcher's  tool.  Prussian  troops  ma}'  bom 
bard  their  city,  and  they  will  show  in  sun-pictures  of 
rent  walls  what  the  cannons  do.  During  the  German 
siege  Parisian  scientists  made  their  calculations,  schol 
ars  carried  on  their  peaceful  discussions,  and  within 
the  military  parallels  artists  chalked  out  their  quite 
different  lines,  while  soldiers  bravely  manned  and 
defended  the  walls ;  and  the  light-hearted,  wonderful 
people,  that  keep  their  footing  in  an  earthquake  and 
make  merry  with  death,  when  the  conflict  ceases  and 
the  fine  is  imposed,  step  politely  forth,  and  in  their  two 
hands  of  industry  and  economy  bring  to  their  astonished 
foe  the  indemnity  which  was  their  cruel  tax,  and  which 
German  improvidence  fails  to  turn  into  expected  wealth. 
Not  from  vineyard  and  silk-factory,  or  trade  and  com 
merce  alone,  but  from  the  beauty-loving  skill  to  turn 
cheap  material  to  attractive  uses,  and  from  the  pictures 
that  convert  values  into  enormous  multiplicands,  their 
resources  come,  making  for  them  as  for  all  a  benedic 
tion  of  art.  Frugal  to  consume  and  copious  to  produce 
what  civilization  must  have  of  a  finer  food  ;  with  a  pro 
fusion  on  their  sunny  soil  of  that  light  which  must  flood 
the  canvas,  as  Thomas  Couture  said,  they  have  for  work 
each  day  of  the  }-ear.  How  complete  is  the  explana 
tion,  in  their  Briarean  dexterity,  of  their  amazing  thrift ! 
What  a  mistake  if  they  do  not  put  their  future  glory 
in  bloodless  conquests  alone  !  As  a  manufacturer,  mu- 


138  PRINCIPLES. 

sician,  comedian,  entertainer,  child  or  set  of  children, 
born  democrat,  —  leaving  behind  her  armed  head,  and 
struggling  into  a  republic  at  last,  —  France  will  unlearn 
strife,  and  become,  as  nature  means,  a  garden  and  con 
servatory  where  all  other  tribes  shall  go  to  school. 

Man's  permanent  necessity  is  art.  An  acre  of  ground 
will  support  a  family  ;  but  there  is  a  mute  craving  which 
corn  and  wheat  cannot  satisfy  and  no  science  can 
appease,  albeit  in  our  day  the  imaginative  appetite  is 
the  last  to  open  its  mouth.  What  volumes  of  meaning  a 
creative  artist  will  condense  on  a  single  cloth  or  wooden 
page !  How  many  words  of  history  are  supplied,  or, 
like  bank-notes,  cancelled,  in  Turner's  "  Slave-Ship"  ! 
That  laboring  bark,  tossed  in  the  trough  of  the  sea,  was 
our  American  ship  of  state.  Our  confused  politics  were 
those  swirling  waves,  and  our  retribution  was  in  that 
yawning  deep.  The  picture  is  criticised  as  abnormal ; 
but,  unnatural  or  supernatural,  why  should  not  that 
painted  heaving  main  be  contrary  to  nature,  as  our 
evil  system  or  any  English  slavery  was  ?  So  all  sorts 
of  monstrous  and  impossible  fishes  swarm  in  the  wa 
tery  chasm  to  devour.  The  miraculous  billows  will 
not  swallow  even  the  iron  fetters,  but  vomit  them  back 
among  the  foaming  crests,  and  make  the  cruel  links  cry 
from  the  ocean,  like  Abel's  blood  from  the  ground. 
What  bottom  have  the  wasteful  caverns  to  allow  such 
dreadful  offences  to  sink?  At  what  port  of  safety 
can  a  vessel  arrive  so  "  rigged  with  curses  and  built  in 
the  eclipse"  ?  Is  not  the  cargo  too  heavy  for  any  craft? 
Shall  not  birds  of  prey  peck  at  the  carcase,  for  which 
fierce  jaws  open  below  ?  What  but  doom  on  iniquity 
would  the  artist  depict?  Yet  in  his  fancy  it  is  no  eter- 


ART.  139 

nal  thing,  but  as  limited  as  it  is  dire.  The  tempest, 
horrid  phantom,  a  fugitive  in  fright,  —  as  in  a  moment, 
shall  blow  awa}'.  Through  a  rift  in  the  black  and  blood 
stained  clouds  shoots  the  steady  shaft  of  light,  to  scat 
ter,  like  a  proclaimed  emancipation,  the  dark.  Its  gleam 
shall  edge  the  horizon  and  fill  the  sky.  The  clearing 
shall  be  a  Christian  redemption,  not  a  Greek  fate.  We 
have  lightened  the  ship  by  throwing  over  the  chains 
and  not  the  slave,  who  helps  to  work  her  and  his  passage 
now. 

Such  pictures  as  Turner's  show  that  when  England 
flowers  in  literature  or  art,  though  she  blossom  not  all 
over  like  France,  it  is  yet  with  expansion  more  splen 
did  and  tough.  But  she  has  scarce  such  a  cluster  of 
artists  as  Millet,  Corot,  and  Couture  with  his  classic 
heads,  part  of  whose  picture  of  the  "Volunteers  of 
1792"  has  come  to  us  to  illustrate  the  strength  more 
than  the  finish  of  his  style.  We  see  at  once  in  the  two 
figures  that  home  is  behind  and  the  battle  before.  They 
are  not  conscripts,  but  willing  offerings.  What  in 
reality  they  have  left  struggles  with  what  in  imagina 
tion  they  go  to,  in  their  mind.  One  of  them,  drooping, 
has  flung  his  arms  about  the  other  for  support,  and  the 
second,  as  he  sustains  his  comrade,  lifts  his  own  eyes 
to  heaven,  because,  said  the  artist,  "poor  fellow,  he 
knows  not  where  else  to  look."  Perhaps  in  no  modern 
picture  does  a  natural  situation  more  suggest  the  ideal 
than  in  Mr.  Couture's  "  Day-Dreams,"  in  which  a  boy, 
having  laid  his  books  in  a  strapped  bundle  on  the 
bench,  in  a  room  open  to  the  light,  follows  with  rapt 
vision  the  bubbles  he  is  blowing  into  the  air.  What 
breadth  of  prospect,  height  of  hope,  lustre  of  good  cheer, 


140  PRINCIPLES. 

vista  of  accomplishment,  and  immortalit}'  for  his  plans, 
appear  in  the  sport  so  familiar  to  childhood,  in  which 
time  is  annihilated,  and  stints  of  study  are  suspended 
and  forgot !  No  kitten  playing  with  its  tail  was  ever 
more  happily  occupied  or  utterly  lost ;  nor  could  unity 
be  more  perfectly  combined  with  variety  in  any  scene. 
It  is  a  masterpiece  in  the  French  style  and  Italian 
too ;  for,  as  one  of  her  historians  has  said,  Gaul  is  the 
real  though  cisalpine  Rome,  an  Italy  transferred,  and 
the  old  blood  preserved  yet  refined,  purged  somewhat 
of  that  greed  for  aggrandizement  which  was  so  over 
strained  by  the  subtle  Corsican,  who,  as  Victor  Hugo 
sa}Ts,  with  his  wars  wearied  God.  France  will  fulfil  her 
better  destiny  if  she  beware  of  artifice  while  cultivating 
art.  Scarce  a  French  novel  or  play  but  introduces  and 
justifies  deceit ;  and  this  signifies  a  civilization  without 
root  or  depth  of  earth.  "Great  bloomers,  but  not 
hardy,"  said  one  of  certain  plausibly  untruthful  persons ; 
and  some  communities  are  social  plants  of  this  agreeable 
and  unpromising  type. 

For  the  masters  in  music  we  must  cross  the  Rhine  ; 
although  the  present  writer  dares  not  attempt  to  pay 
his  own  debt  to  this  art,  for  all  its  refreshment  and 
peace,  lying  so  deep  as  it  does  in  the  universal  mind. 
The  whole  air  is  one  capacity  for  airs,  Lydian  or  Tyn- 
taean  ;  the  atmosphere  is  a  potential  concord  and  latent 
S3rmphony  and  slumbering  hymn  of  praise,  which  every 
voice  or  viol,  pipe  or  string,  throat  of  bird,  insect,  or 
man,  is  but  the  means  to  arouse.  Even  when  it  is  pro 
voked  to  harshness  and  tortured  into  dissonance,  dis 
tance,  as  if  it  were  an  atmospheric  repentance,  eliminates 
discord,  and  softens,  without  rendering  inaudible,  the 


ART.  141 

roughest  notes.  In  what  sweetness  come  back  the 
echoes  of  a  braying  horn  among  the  hills  !  It  is  said 
the  Covenanters'  rude  songs  in  the  Scotch  Highlands 
became  melodies  indescribably  winsome  to  travellers' 
ears  afar.  Historic  philosophers  are  wont  to  call  musi 
cal  nations  weak  politically,  citing  Italy  and  Germany 
as  cases  in  point.  Is  it  in  spite,  or  at  all  in  conse 
quence  of  a  musical  spring  in  the  mind,  that  Germany, 
twenty  years  ago  feeble  as  so  many  scattered  sticks, 
has  become  the  strongly  bound  fagot  in  .ZEsop's  fable, 
and  the  so  long  oppressed  and  derided  Italy  a  free 
kingdom,  reacting  on  the  papal  sway?  No  religious 
or  civil  accusation  will  hold  against  art,  of  whatsoever 
sort.  Any  art,  like  any  nature,  may  be  turned  to  a  sen 
sual  purpose,  but  only  by  abuse.  If  Shakspeare  tell 
us  all  art  is  but  nature,  we  will  answer  all  nature  is 
but  art;  and  from  the  Fashioner  of  the  world,  in  his 
own  example,  comes  the  summons  of  all  our  forge tive 
faculties  to  a  serious  though  cheerful  end.  My  friend, 
the  music-teacher,  hates  to  hear  people  say  of  a  concert 
how  they  enjoyed  it !  His  music  is  his  religion,  as  to 
Jean  Paul  Richter  a  solemn  strain  suggested  what  he 
had  never  experienced  nor  should  behold,  a  blessedness 
almost  painful  because  too  vast  for  hope.  What  a 
span  from  the  guttural  trumpet  or  high  note  of  the 
tenor  drum  and  scream  of  the  fife  stirring  up  the  fray, 
to  the  slow  and  soothing  dirge  that  bears  the  dead  sol 
dier  to  his  rest,  and  from  anthems  of  worship  to  the 
twanging  strings  that  lead  on  the  lively  dance  !  How 
consoling,  at  the  funeral,  is  a  choir !  That  is  never 
quite  sad  which  we  can  sing  about.  Love  sings,  faith 
sings,  and  sorrow  sings  as  it  is  converted  into  joy. 


142  PRINCIPLES. 

Without  his  chorister  in  the  tabernacle,  how  poorly  the 
revivalist  would  fare,  ill  suited  to  a  song  as  some  of  the 
dark  old  dogmas  are  !  What  a  river  of  God,  full  of 
water,  runs  in  the  fugues  of  Sebastian  Bach  !  How  ce 
lestial  harmonies  must  have  spilled  over  on  Beethoven's 
inner  ear !  What  a  lark  at  heaven's  gate  was  Mozart, 
and  how  the  oratorios  of  Haydn  and  Handel  and  Men 
delssohn  seem  to  continue  some  chorus  of  angels  on 
high !  Paradise  would  not  be  believed  in  but  for  our 
snatches  of  their  notes.  Columbus  knew  the  neighbor 
hood  of  a  continent  by  the  floating  weeds  and  a  fra 
grance  in  the  air ;  what  we  catch  of  a  diviner  color  and 
odor  ' '  beyond  the  reaches  of  our  souls  "  is  proof  that 
we  coast  the  edges  of  another  world.  Amid  doctrinal 
wrangles  comes  the  all-reconciling  psalm.  I  can  sing 
Trinitarian  doxologies  in  Orthodox  companies,  —  all 
but  the  words  !  A  good  voice  is  of  no  sect,  but  media 
tor  of  all ;  and  the  dull  sermon  or  more  tedious  prayer, 
in  many  a  village-church,  is  sanctified  or  atoned  for  by 
the  fresh  voices  in  the  organ-loft,  while  the  solemn 
pipes,  by  whose  resonance  they  are  surmounted  and  led, 
seem  to  furnish  vernacular  language  and  a  mother- 
tongue  to  the  reverent  soul. 

Hearing  supplements  vision ;  for  while  the  eye  is  a 
rolling  and  too  often  unfixed  and  restless  orb,  the  ear  is 
an  aperture  and  open  door.  Let  us  not  only  chant  or 
play  faithfully  what  is  set  down  in  the  score,  but  mod 
ulate  the  inflections  of  our  daily  speech  till  there  shall 
be  but  cordial  invitation  and  gracious  welcome,  with  no 
yelling  in  the  house,  and  children's  voices  be  trained 
into  tune.  Some  intonations  instinct  with  tenderness 
strike  more  kindly  and  stay  longer  in  the  bosom's  audi- 


ART.  143 

ence-chamber  than  any  tremolo  or  sostenuto  of  Braham  or 
Malibran.  Not  Webster's  clarion  or  Everett's  violin  or 
Kemble's  flute-note  resounds  in  my  ear  like  the  uncon 
sciously  intoned  affection  of  some  young  maiden  or  man, 
half  ashamed  or  unawares. 

But  from  any  art  can  the  dark  and  dreadful  side  of 
life  be  left  out  ?  The  thunder  intrudes  in  the  ' '  Pastoral 
Symphony,"  and  in  the  Last  Supper  Judas  darkens 
the  door.  The  unspeakable  Turk  challenges  yet  for  his 
crooked  cimeter  a  needful  task.  What  a  gap  in  nature 
would  be  made  b}^  the  instant  extinction  of  violent  pas 
sions  or  the  sudden  removal  of  wild  beasts  !  It  would  be 
like  the  rise  and  retreat  of  that  huge  bore  into  which  sub 
marine  earthquakes  urge  the  waves,  and  would  compel 
immediate  alteration  of  every  constitution  and  human 
law.  How  to  arrange  or  govern  or  understand  we 
should  no  longer  know.  Charity  let  us  have.  If  we 
would  be  able  to  describe,  we  must  not  judge,  save  that 
the  Lord  means  something  in  all  he  makes  ;  nor  denounce 
qualities  that  differ  from  ours,  like  some  besotted  fashion- 
ist  that  roars  against  Mohammedan  or  Mongolian  cos 
tume.  What  are  all  our  notions  but  the  dress  of  our 
minds  ? 

There  is  a  prejudice  of  fanatics  that  art  is  a  cold 
business  and  the  artist  a  cold  man  as  he  bends  so 
calmly  and  unexcitedly  to  his  patient  task.  "  Goethe," 
says  some  sentimental  critic,  "  was  a  piece  of  ice,"  and 
Shakspeare  surveys  the  unfolding  of  dire  situations 
witluwhat  a  passionless  eye  !  But  is  it  a  virtue  to  culti 
vate  tears?  "  Genius  burns,  but  does  not  .weep."  Is 
the  actor  or  author  heartless  and  indifferent  because  he 
keeps  his  temper,  as  he  keeps  a  fire,  under  control? 


144  PRINCIPLES. 

In  the  chemic  arts  flames  are  used  of  an  intensity  supe 
rior  to  that  which  consumes  a  building  or  cracks  the 
marble  and  melts  the  iron  in  the  conflagration  of  a 
town ;  but  naphtha  and  blow-pipe  and  nitro-glycerine 
and  bottled  lightning  are  held  to  service.  The}'  are  the 
onty  sort  of  unemancipated  slaves.  But  we  are  mas 
tered  by  a  careless  candle,  or  an  overset  kerosene-lamp, 
or  a  spark  that  escapes  from  a  tinder-box  or  match.  If 
we  would  know  what  caloric  is,  we  go  to  the  blacksmith 
and  white-smith,  not  to  a  flustered  cook  or  burnt  child. 
If  we  would  understand  intellectual  heat,  we  run  not 
after  the  blazing  straw  or  bonfire  of  some  short-lived 
romance,  but  to  the  anvils  where  scholars  and  poets 
forge  their  enduring  thoughts.  Are  ^Eschylns  and 
Dante  pitiless  because  they  will  not  spoil  with  cheap 
fortunes  the  dignit}T  of  their  characters  and  the  consist 
ency  of  their  plots  ?  They  would  lose  nature  in  losing 
poise.  A  blaze  is  dissipation  of  warmth.  Poets  are 
tide-waiters  upon  God.  Like  becalmed  vessels,  they 
look  for  a  breeze.  We  must  be  slow  that  we  may  be 
swift.  Many  persons  are  impatient  of  the  tard}T  evolu 
tion  of  humanity,  and  accuse  Providence  of  being  indif 
ferent  and  cold.  Does  God  indeed  see  and  hear,  that 
the  thunder  of  his  wrath  at  iniquity  delays  to  strike  ? 
But  his  eye  and  ear  include  all,  sinner  and  saint ;  and 
his  interpreters  are  like  himself. 

The  most  ardent  of  men  in  my  memory  was  a  Metho 
dist  preacher,  who  was  an  artist  too.  A  transcendent 
enthusiast,  considering  his  topics  like  red-hot  spikes 
which  another  could  not  hold,  yet  no  kindling  on  the 
hearth  and  no  northern  aurora  or  crinkling  flash  in  the 
cloud  ever  described  the  line  of  beauty  more  truly  than 


ART.  145 

the  sallies  of  his  speech,  which  was  not  from  his  mouth 
alone,  but  in  every  motion  and  feature  of  his  frame  and 
face.  One  day,  without  rising  from  his  seat  at  the  table, 
this  consummate  performer,  who  never  had  any  train 
ing  for  the  stage,  described  to  the  company  a  spinning 
dervish.  Into  the  character  he  was  himself  trans 
formed  ;  and  we,  who  looked  and  listened,  were  trans 
ported  to  the  East,  or  rather  the  strange  Oriental  figure 
was  imported  into  the  room.  In  what  amazing  gesture 
and  gyration  the  forms  of  a  Christian  piety  were  for  the 
moment  lost  or  laid  aside  as  so  much  frippery  from  a 
wardrobe,  while  the  sense  of  the  infinite  in  another  re 
ligion  was  shown !  We  beheld  as  in  a  mirror  the  wild 
prophet  of  the  desert,  as  though  on  those  farther  than 
California  sand-lots,  or  rising  through  the  floor.  But 
Arab  or  Yankee,  it  mattered  not  which  to  this  clerical 
performer's  versatile  skill.  In  a  certain  political  cam 
paign  one  of  our  Eastern  men  was  so  assured  of  his 
party's  success  that  he  engaged  to  trundle  a  barrel  of 
apples  on  a  wheelbarrow  some  thirty  miles  to  Boston 
in  case  of  its  defeat ;  and  he  actually  both  incurred  and 
himself  executed  the  penalty,  on  losing  his  singular  bet. 
The  Bethel  preacher,  to  whose  histrionic  ability  I  refer, 
was  not  absent  when  that  singular  freight  came  along 
the  street ;  and  more  than  a  score  of  years  has  not 
dimmed  the  vividness  of  his  account  at  the  time.  The 
lively  expectation  of  the  grotesque  figure  about  to 
come  had  lined  with  spectators  the  long  and  crooked 
route.  "  Young  men  and  maidens,  old  men  and  chil 
dren,"  crowded  the  squares,  planted  themselves  at  the 
corners  of  every  avenue,  hung  on  the  fences,  peered  over 
the  brick  walls,  and  thrust  their  heads  out  of  the  win- 

10 


146  PRINCIPLES. 

dows,  each  face  aglow  with  the  humor  of  the  occasion. 
The  city  wore,  or  was,  one  universal  smile.  Its  popu 
lation  had  melted  into  sympathy  for  once.  It  had  be 
come  an  expectant  theatre.  At  last  "  a  little  man  with 
oakum  whiskers"  pushed  his  wheel,  tugging  at  the  bent 
handles,  through  the  throng.  From  the  amusing  situa 
tion  came  a  fellowship  whose  ties  no  solemn  sermon 
could  weave  ;  and  the  novel  communion  administered 
was  pictured  in  tone  and  gesture,  such  as  might  be 
envied  by  Kean  or  Garrick  or  an}^  star  on  the  stage,  by 
our  transcendent  mime.  In  this  great  actor,  in  or  out  of 
the  desk,  was  no  mimicry  or  painstaking  imitation  of  the 
signs  of  feeling,  as  the  critics  questioned  whether  Ra 
chel  did  not  display.  The  elder  Booth  was  no  more 
"  to  the  manner  born,"  nor  touched  perfection  closer  in 
every  detail.  At  the  festival  of  an  order  of  believers 
not  his  own,  being  invited  to  speak,  he  told  of  his  visit 
to  Virginia,  where  he  was  born,  - — his  great  wish  being 
to  see  u  Little  Johnn}-,"  with  whom  he  had  played  as  a 
boy.  Much  he  inquired  and  long  he  hunted  for  his 
mate,  but  in  vain.  "  Little  Johnny"  no  one  seemed  to 
know.  Still  he  urged  his  pursuit,  inquired  of  all  the 
folks,  entered  into  particulars  about  the  family  and  the 
early  circumstances  of  his  own  connection  with  it,  till 
finally  ' '  Little  Johnny  "  was  actually  brought  in  —  not 
the  brisk,  rosy  lad  he  remembered,  but  an  aged,  gray- 
haired,  stooping,  and  trembling  veteran  —  to  stand  by 
his  side ;  and  he  found  he  himself  was  no  longer  a  boy. 
How  the  dramatic  representation  filled  the  hall,  and 
how  the  thousand  persons  in  it  gazed  all  together  while 
they  heard !  The  Unitarian  president  with  his  support 
ing  dignitaries  had  disappeared  in  the  spectators  and 


ART.  147 

the  spectacle.  He,  the  sole  actor,  that  strode  as  if  alone 
on  the  platform,  was  the  entire  troupe  he  depicted,  — 
old  man,  "  Little  Johnny,"  and  himself.  Had  the  wall 
behind,  like  that  of  Belshazzar's  palace,  blazed  into 
letters  of  fate  under  a  miraculous  hand,  the  sight  could 
not  have  been  more  real  to  the  eye. 

The  exhaustion  that  followed  on  such  exhibitions  as 
I  but  faintly  hint  was  demonstration  how  the  soul  may 
be  exercised  by  what  is  called  fiction  more  profoundly 
than  by  any  fact.  Anton  Rubinstein  told  me  his  life 
was  habitual  torture,  with  only  gleaming  intervals  of 
joy ;  so  overwrought  was  he  by  the  double  genius  to 
compose  and  perform,  till  he  was  ready  to  accuse  the 
heavens  of  injustice  because  the}'  would  not  tell  him 
which  of  the  two  to  do.  If  the  artist  be  cold,  it  is 
because  he  shivers  at  the  awful  shapes  that  beckon  in 
his  vision  to  be  introduced  on  earth.  So  only  is  Bal 
zac,  George  Eliot,  or  George  Sand  cool.  The}'  are  not 
like  glass  that  lets  through  a  sunbeam,  or  the  plate  that 
takes  the  impression  of  a  photograph,  or  th£  telescope 
that  reports  a  star.  These  revealers  are  consubstantial 
with  the  revelation  they  make.  But  they,  the  revealers, 
must  not  be  swept  away.  How  could  they  measure 
what  they  were  mastered  by?  They  must  wrestle,  like 
Jacob,  until  dawn,  and  not  be  thrown,  though  their 
"thigh  be  out  of  joint"!  The  poet  Horace  says  we 
must  weep  first  if  we  would  make  others  weep.  But 
we  must  not  be  dissolved,  drowned  in,  or  choked  by  our 
tears.  If  the  preachers  cry,  and  do  not  articulate,  we 
have  a  baby  at  home  who  can  do  that !  The  dramatist 
ma}*  pity  the  victim  as  he  conducts  him  to  doom,  but 
he  cannot  stop  to  have  compassion  on  himself.  He  may 


148  PRINCIPLES. 

despise  the  villain  he  cannot  afford  to  destro}7.  Said  a 
certain  actor  in  a  whisper  to  one  that  supported  him  in 
the  play,  "  I  am  feeling  too  much  to  perform  my  part." 
To  perform  is  always,  and  to  give  way  or  give  up  is 
never,  the  business  in  hand,  be  our  calling  or  profession 
to  set  forth  a  scene,  assist  at  a  tragedy  in  real  life,  warn 
or  persuade,  console  or  heal.  The  surgeon  can  have 
only  a  surgical  smile  or  tear.  If  the  artist  seem  icy, 
it  is  because  he  is  disinterested;  and  his  "  frost,"  in 
Milton's  phrase,  "performs  the  effect  of  fire."  Ary 
Scheffer  sketches  Dante's  scene  in  the  "  Inferno,"  where 
Dante  and  Virgil  together  look  on  the  whirl  of  retribu 
tion  in  which,  as  in  a  rolling  cloud,  Francesca  di  Rimini 
with  her  lover  is  involved.  How  calm  and  unmoved  as 
marble  statues  the  poets  appear,  standing  motionless 
to  see  the  judgment  of  God !  Deep  thought  stills  us, 
as  Michael  Angelo's  figure  called  the  "Thinker"  shows. 
Equally  quiet  are  we  under  intense  feeling.  Words 
worth  had  "  thoughts  too  deep  for  tears." 

The  arts^  like  the  old  muses  or  furies,  are  sisters, 
yet  they  cannot  be  transformed  into  each  other.  When 
a  lady  requested  Mendelssohn  to  put  certain  poetic 
lines  into  a  musical  score,  he  refused,  not  because  tones 
are  less  definite,  but,  as  he  said,  more  so  than  words. 
That  all  the  arts,  including  nature,  the  divine  and  ever 
lasting  one,  have  a  common  root,  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  we  speak  of  a  beautiful  picture,  voice,  speech, 
manner,  essa}*,  scene,  or  expression,  not  doubting  the 
equal  appropriateness  of  the  term  to  all  these  things, 
though  they  cannot  be  converted  into  each  other  like 
electricity,  magnetism,  light,  and  heat. 

The   objection  of  piety  to  art  only  accuses  piety,  if 


ART.  149 

piet}'  honor  that  Bible  which  tells  of  Hiram  and  Tubal 
with  their  brass  vessels  and  Paul  at  his  tent-making, 
which  preaches  the  beauty  of  holiness,  and  is  itself  of 
all  our  performance  only  the  programme.  The  artisan, 
more  than  the  artist  proper,  wins  both  our  reward  and 
our  respect.  The  latter  among  us  is  poor  to  a  prov 
erb,  in  more  than  one  sense,  of  reputation  as  well  as 
pocket.  Painter  or  sculptor,  what  an  unnecessary  per 
son  he  is,  dealing  at  best  in  a  luxury,  not  a  necessity  of 
life  !  The  maiden  that  makes  a  pretty  face  an  excuse 
for  sloth  and  expensive  dress  of  silks  and  rings  is 
called,  with  some  irony,  the  ornament  of  the  family ; 
and  the  supreme  artist  that  embalms  and  immortalizes 
what  is  best  of  nature  and  man,  in  color  and 'form,  can 
vas  and  stone,  has  in  general  society  less  standing  and 
acceptance  than  the  great  banker,  railway-builder, 
manufacturer,  or  engineer.  As  the  Japanese  put  the 
milkman  above  the  merchant,  so  in  this  country  the 
name  of  the  successful  stock-speculator  is  blown  farther 
from  the  trumpet  of  fame  than  that  of  the  picture-maker, 
whom  we  patronize  or  dispense  with  as  we  please. 
How  few  have  heard  of  Stuart  the  portrait-painter, 
compared  with  the  millions  that  know  about  Stewart  the 
millionnaire  !  Washington  Allston  or  Cornelius  Vander- 
bilt,  —  which  in  our  cities  and  in  our  history  passes  for 
the  greater  name?  Against  the  common  disparaging 
judgment  let  me  show  the  bearing  of  art  on  the  charac 
ter  and  welfare  of  the  community. 

It  is,  first,  a  consolation  and  joy  in  our  eager,  toiling, 
bargain-driving,  hurried,  nerve-wearing,  and  insanity- 
producing  American  life.  What  a  pregnant  sketch 
of  an  influence  to  soothe  and  make  glad  we  have 


150  PRINCIPLES. 

to  this  point  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  !  A  born 
cripple  is  laid  daily  at  the  ' '  Gate  of  the  Temple  called 
Beautiful."  As  in  reading  we  hurry  on  to  the  miracle 
of  healing  reported  as  done  by  Peter,  we  forget  to  ask 
why  and  for  what  purpose  every  morning  the  lame 
man  was  carried  to  that  spot.  For  the  same  reason, 
was  it  not,  that  the  unfortunate  appeal  to  us  in  the 
market  and  at  the  corner  of  the  street,  because  he 
would  be  there  in  the  current  and  concourse  of  the  pop 
ulation,  particularly  that  throng  among  which  would  be 
the  greatest  number  of  such  as  might  be  inclined  to 
charity.  But  what  lame  man,  blind  man,  or  beggar  of 
any  sort,  would  take  his  station,  on  a  week-day  or  any 
day,  on  the  granite  or  marble  steps  of  a  New  York  or 
Boston  sanctuary?  He  would  find  nobody  there  stop 
ping  to  help  him  or  even  to  hear  his  tale.  He  would 
be  quite  out  of  the  stream  of  passers-by.  Why  was  he 
in  it  near  Solomon's  Porch  at  Jerusalem?  Because  the 
Jews  frequented  their  house  of  praise,  their  place  of 
pra3'er,  and  it  was  a  meeting-house  indeed  ;  because 
they  worshipped  God  with  a  joint  homage  which  many 
so-called  Christians,  that  despise  and  class  them 
with  heathens,  regularly  omit ;  because  there  was  more 
love  of  beauty  and  fondness  for  art,  the  minister  of 
beauty,  among  those  Hebrews  whom  we  turn  the  cold 
shoulder  to  and  fancy  we  have  left  so  far  behind,  than 
among  us  of  the  Yankee  breed  ;  because  Judaea  in 
herited  a  love  and  taste  for  what  charms  the  eye 
and  soothes  the  soul,  and  because,  too,  the  spirit  of 
Greece  had  got  into  Judaea ;  because  they  had  time 
to  pause  and  peacefully  survey  the  glory  of  the  edifice, 
as  they  were  entering,  and  were  not,  in  that  better  age 


ART.  151 

of  Israel,  bitten  with  this  our  American  tarantula  of 
the  greed  of  gain,  which,  like  an  evil  humor,  or  skin 
disease  once  contracted,  itches  and  torments  its  victim 
to  his  dying  day,  and  leaves  his  safe  or  chest  to  the 
beaks  and  claws  of  his  heirs  ;  because  that  one  gate 
called  Beautiful,  made  of  the  Corinthian  brass,  which, 
delicately  wrought,  had  a  price  and  dignity,  the  historian 
tells  us,  superior  to  gold,  drew  the  majority  of  the  quiet 
procession  to  the  sacred  shrine ;  and  because,  more 
over,  the  poor  man  with  his  congenital  defect  found  not 
only  a  convenience  and  sustenance  in  the  alms  which 
he  solicited,  but  also  a  solace  for  his  disability  and  pain, 
as  he  whiled  away  the  time  in  gazing  at  those  pillars  in 
their  proportions  and  polish  so  handsome  and  grateful 
to  the  eye. 

Have  we  no  deeper  than  a  bodily  deficiency  or  mal 
ady,  to  be  likewise  supplied  or  assuaged  by  beauty  of 
art  in  that  pictorial  allurement,  which  is  more  effectual 
than  any  arch  or  lintel  or  carved  column  to  make  us 
forget  our  want  or  distress  ?  When  we  see  a  man  limp 
ing  along  the  street  with  a  crutch  or  wooden  leg,  we 
pity  him  for  his  misfortune,  we  grudge  the  accident  — 
some  fall  or  blow,  coupling  of  the  cars  or  bullet  in  the 
wars  —  that  maimed  his  living  member  or  clove  it  swiftty 
away.  Is  there  in  us  no  cause,  from  an  undeveloped  or 
mutilated  mind,  for  sorer  lament,  and  calling  for  a 
more  benignant  cure,  from  such  a  gracious  influence  as 
divine  beauty  in  art?  If  we  pass  over  a  noble  scene, 
natural  or  represented  by  the  brush,  and  disparage  the 
exquisite  portraiture  as  of  no  account ;  if  we  discourage 
art-culture  in  the  community  as  of  no  ethical  or  spirit 
ual  worth,  —  our  mental  constitution  is  lacking,  if  not 


152  PRINCIPLES. 

sick.  What  are  the  satisfactions  and  consolations  of 
such  as  care  not  for  that  beauty  in  which  God  has 
wrapped  the  world,  in  order  that  his  children  might 
know  his  essence,  and  both  admire  and  copy  his 
work?  Heavy  and  costly  dinners,  to  eat  and  drink  and 
smoke,  to  perfume  and  adorn  the  person,  to  drive  and 
clothe  and  sail? 

But  not  only  or  mainly  to  assuage  trouble  or  substi 
tute  higher  pleasure,  not  only  as  an  opiate  or  anti 
dote,  not  only  as  contemplative  but  also  as  creative, 
does. art  claim  our  regard.  Thousands  looked  at  u  the 
Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple  ; "  but  one  designed  and 
made  it,  and  had  in  it  the  chief  honor  and  benefit. 
Somehow  we  should  all  be  artists  after  God,  whose  art 
is  all  we  are  and  see.  Something  we  should  all  design 
and  make  for  others'  advantage  and  delight  and  the  un 
folding  of  our  own  powers.  The  constructive  and  creative 
faculty  is  more  or  less  in  us  all ;  else  why  have  we  this 
hand  ?  Are  its  uses  exhausted  in  putting  on  our  clothes, 
carrying  food  to  our  mouth,  grasping  another  hand, 
bearing  arms  in  war-time,  or  being  doubled  up  into  a 
fist,  —  this  wonderful  hand,  which  from  the  world's  foun 
dation  and  crude  substance  makes  its  own  tools,  directs 
the  most  delicate  instruments  of  science,  and  rules  the 
heaviest  machines  ?  It  signifies  the  inmost  soul  with  a 
gesture,  and  it  also  sows  and  reaps,  hoists  the  rope  and 
holds  the  helm,  receives  the  new-born  babe  and  lays 
out  the  dead,  and  should  not  itself  be  cold  and  still  be 
fore  it  has  left  for  others'  welfare  some  memorial  in  the 
world.  The  eye  is  a  nobler  sense  than  touch,  but  the 
eye  is  an  idler  without  the  executive  hand. 

But,  one  says,  I  cannot  do  any  thing  in  the  way  of 


ART.  153 

art.  I  cannot  paint,  or  model,  or  mould,  or  build,  or 
contrive  a  chest  of  drawers,  or  even  drive  a  nail.  I 
have  no  hand  to  lend  or  give !  Sometimes,  from  ob 
structed  circulation,  the  hand  or  foot  is,  as  we  say, 
asleep  while  the  rest  of  the  body  is  wide  awake.  If  we 
do  not  a  stroke  or  stitch  of  work,  our  hand,  in  all  that 
makes  .the  virtue  and  glory  of  it,  is  asleep  all  the  time. 
Many  a  hand  is  unused  because  the  owner  has  got 
ahead  and  is  forehanded,  and  can  leave  to  his  less  pros 
perous  fellows  what  he  considers  lower  pursuits.  But, 
as  not  a  soul  is  born  without  this  double-handed  pro 
vision,  industrial  education  is  a  just  claimant  that  has 
its  perfect  triumph  but  postponed  to  a  better  age. 
Meantime,  leaving  aside  manual  accomplishment  in  all 
its  low  or  lofty  range,  there  is  a  want  of  meaning,  an 
awkward,  ugly  deformnVy,  a  clumsy  managing,  or  else  a 
beautiful  art,  in  every  human  hand.  If  our  senses  be 
exercised  spiritually,  we  discern  in  eveiy  man  or  woman 
whether  they  have  a  hand  of  bounty  and  service,  or  one 
close  and  cruel  and  mean.  Fair  or  unfair  handling  is 
the  tale  composed  by  all  these  fingers,  and  writ  on  every 
palm.  To  do  is  more  than  to  know. 

But  what,  in  its  peculiar,  proud,  and  pictorial  sense, 
is  the  use  of  art?  What  but  a  poor,  half-successful  at 
tempt  to  imitate  nature  is  it  at  best?  Why  care  for  this 
small  fragment  and  petty  mimicry  of  a  landscape  framed 
and  hung  on  the  wall,  when  we  have  the  whole  glorious 
and  vast  original  out  of  doors  ?  If  we  think  it  a  mere 
copy  or  fac-simile  or  repetition  of  nature,  we  misun 
derstand  art.  The  artist  is  a  soul,  an  observing,  sensi 
tive,  selecting  intelligence,  reproducing  what  charms 
him  in  another  form,  diverse  from  and  substantially 


154  PRINCIPLES. 

adding  to  the  natural  scene.  Topography  or  photography 
is  not  art.  With  the  same  imagination  and  feeling  we 
rejoice  in  both  nature  and  art.  But  in  a  picture  are 
always  three  elements.  —  nature,  art,  and  the  artist,  or 
the  way  he  is  touched  by  what  he  sees.  As  much  as  a 
tent  pitched,  or  as  the  old  patriarch  himself,  adds  to  the 
wilderness,  or  a  procession  to  the  street,  or  a  great 
gathering  in  every  city,  East  or  West,  to  the  now  peace 
ful  march  through  the  land  of  the  hero  of  our  civil  war, 
so  much  genius,  which  is  sensibility  and  effort  com 
bined,  adds  to  the  situation  it  descries,  conceives,  and 
portra}^.  It  celebrates  the  theme  it  paints.  It  chooses 
from  nature.  It  tells  us  what  is  admirable  and  lovely, 
in  its  admiration  and  love.  It  emphasizes  and  calls  us 
to  notice  that  which  stirs  its  own  adoration  and  delight. 
As  the  Fourth  of  July  differs  from  another  da}T,  though  the 
same  earth  be  underfoot  and  the  same  heaven  overhead, 
so  does  a  canvas  from  the  wide  waste  of  things.  Though 
purged  of  all  egotism  or  individualism,  there  is  a  strong 
personality  in  every  genuine  production  of  the  chisel  or 
the  brush.  We  peruse  with  interest  the  lives  of  great 
men.  But  we  shall  find  the  biography  and  autobiogra 
phy  of  Michael  Angelo,  not  in  any  words  written  con 
cerning  him,  not  even  in  his  own,  so  much  as  in  the 
awful  and  beautiful  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel ;  in 
his  figure  of  Moses  and  the  "  Creation  of  Adam ; "  in 
the  "Thinker,"  so  called;  in  his  sublime  portraitures 
of  the  "Separation  of  Light  from  Darkness,"  and  of 
"Night  and  Day,"  that  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the 
Creator  of  the  world.  No  doubt  will  remain  how  he 
thought  and  felt  and  wrought.  Is  not  that  all  there  is 
of  any  man?  Does  the  heaven  on  earth  of  the  French 


ART.  155 

Corot's  landscapes  not  let  you  into  his  heart?  Is  any 
question  left  of  Millet's  humanity,  after  you  have  seen 
what  his  pencil  tells  of  French  peasant  life  ? 

True  art  is  not  a  trifling,  superficial,  and  inconsider 
able  adjunct  to  the  leisure  of  our  life,  — an  entertainment 
for  which  we  are  to  give  a  compliment,  as  we  bow  to  a 
stranger  and  pass  by.  If  roads  and  ships  and  telegraphs 
and  tunnels  through  the  hills  are  its  grosser  demonstra 
tions,  appreciated  by  all,  the  picture  and  statue  are  to 
what  is  immortal  in  us  how  much  more  precious  and 
fine !  If  I  must,  for  my  instruction,  learn  dead  lan 
guages  and  turn  over  the  leaves  of  Gibbon  and  Hume, 
I  shall  not  overlook  art's  tongues  and  narratives  alive. 
By  my  fatigue,  as  I  retire,  I  know  I  have  been  exercised 
and  taught  as  much  in  the  galleries  as  in  the  books. 
Our  art  is  imperfect,  as  it  has  many  a  step  forward  to 
take,  and  to  make  the  good  and  beautiful  more  largely 
its  theme,  leaving  the  evil  or  painful,  as  in  dying  or 
dead  men  or  game,  which  is  so  ephemeral,  proportionally 
out.  But  such  a  subject  as  that  "  Good  Samaritan,"  on 
the  Public  Garden,  with  his  ether  for  mortal  anguish, 
and  as  that  just-inaugurated  "Emancipation  Group," 
on  the  Square  yonder,  must  not  only  affect  but  refine 
and  exalt  the  common  mind,  as  a  sort  of  silent  and  in 
cessant  sermon  and  exhortation  to  mercy.  I  met  an  un^ 
shaved,  coarsely  dressed,  and  not  very  lately  washed 
fellow-citizen,  who  had  stopped  to  gaze  with  me  at  the 
Abraham  Lincoln,  in  bronze,  meeting  with  his  downcast 
eye  the  upward  glance  of  the  unfettered  slave.  "  I  have 
no  fault  to  find  with  that,"  he  said  ;  "  and,  sure  as  you 
are  alive,  it  will  do  good."  It  had  to  him  ! 

Art  is  the  jubilee  of  nature ;   and  an  art-museum  is 


156  PRINCIPLES. 

the  place  of  permanent  sessions  where  it  is  held,  being 
itself  a  monumental,  ever-increasing  dividend  of  charity 
from  many  a  merchant's  cargo,  tradesman's  sales,  pro 
fessional  man's  salary,  and  scholar's  fee,  to  set  up  a 
new  gospel  for  the  poor,  two  days  every  week,  ' '  with 
out  mone}7  and  without  price,"  and  to  open  a  bible 
of  beauty,  vying  with  that  of  truth,  to  call  men  from 
debasing  pleasures  of  lazy  hours  to  the  indulgence  of 
appetites  that  do  not  injure  but  exalt. 


LOVE.  157 


VI. 

LOVE. 

THE  tragedy  of  life  is  that  a  feeling  promising  to  be 
eternal  should  so  quickly  pass.  The  Spanish 
Lola  Montes  represents  a  gentleman,  uneasy  under  the 
sting  of  a  new  affection,  saying  to  himself  as  a  consola 
tion  derived  from  former  experience,  "  It  will  not  last." 
The  new  German  philosophy  tells  us,  love  is  but  the 
species  wishing  to  continue  and  laying  hold  of  the  indi 
viduals  as  its  instruments,  cheating  them  with  illusoiy  ex 
pectations  of  happiness  the  flesh  cannot  }~ield  ;  while  our 
American  poet  tells  us  that  the  fairy  which  the  virgin 
maid  seems  to  be  is  lost  in  the  "  gentle  wife,"  that  the 
man  must  surrender  his  beloved  at  her  faintest  surmise 
of  joy  in  another  person,  and  that  the  pain  which  has  no 
balm  is  when  love  loses  the  companionship  of  thought 
which  he  calls  "  the  muse."  Science,  going  down 
meantime  to  the  lowest  unions  of  insect,  bird,  and  beast, 
finds  in  offspring  the  lovers'  bond,  —  how  transient  with 
the  animal,  but  more  lasting  with  man !  Into  the  midst 
of  many  xfond  hopes,  defeated  and  broken  vows,  and 
mutual  relations  tolerated  with  ill-disguised  disgust, 
the  outward  alliance  checkmated  with  inward  repulse, 
stalks  the  spectre  of  a  sexual  independence,  or  free  love, 
maintained  on  principle  and  carried  out  in  practice,  to 
transform  into  assumed  virtue  what  our  fathers  and  our 


158  PRINCIPLES. 

Scriptures  pronounce  a  vice.      Let  us  ask   how  love 
once  felt  may  be  confirmed. 

First,  by  service.  We  love  what  we  labor  for,  though 
but  a  tree  we  plant  or  a  wall  we  build.  How  dear  the 
invalid  for  whom  we  care,  the  ailing  partner  or  the 
crippled  child !  What  we  give  binds  us,  not  what  we 
receive.  How  fast  must  be  God's  tie  with  all  his  crea 
tures  !  When  in  the  simple  story  we  read  that  ' '  hav 
ing  loved  his  own,"  Jesus  "  loved  them  unto  the  end," 
do  we  reflect  out  of  what  need  to  minister  to  their  igno 
rance  and  to  bear  with  their  infirmities  his  interest  arose  ? 
Had  it  lived  on  the  returns,  how  soon  it  must  have 
starved !  Well  does  helpmate  denote  the  closest  link. 
Redoubled  attention  must  come  to  the  rescue  when  the 
first  flush  of  transport  fades  and  the  youthful  joy  ebbs  : 
and  they  will  fix  a  better  color  and  fill  any  void.  Love 
exists  for  those  between  whom  is  no  boundary.  Such 
persons  commune  indeed,  while  the  Lord's  Supper  is  but 
the  service  of  communion.  The  bliss  comes  of  being 
delivered  from  loneliness  or  feeling  lonesome  in  the 
world ;  and  as  love  consists  in  a  blended  existence,  no 
solitude  is  possible  while  it  endures,  and  it  is  literally 
true  that  death  has  no  power  to  part.  How  perpetuate 
this  fusion  in  which,  like  those  rivers  whose  individuality 
is  scarce  traceable  while  their  currents  mix,  husband 
and  wife  are  one  ?  By  waiting  on  each  other  with  that 
perpetual  aid  which  taking  each  other  by  the*  arm  and 
breaking  bread  together  express.  A  woman  for  whom 
I  spoke  the  marriage-vows  after  a  year  sought  a  divorce. 
"  Did  you  love  the  man  when  you  were  first  joined  with 
him?"  I  asked.  'k  Indeed,  I  did,"  was  the  reply.  How 
but  by  gradually  abated  service,  turning  to  neglect,  were 
caresses  at  last  exchanged  for  blows  ? 


LOVE.  159 

But  beneath,  this  handiwork  of  service  lies  justice, 
which  we  think  due  to  the  household  as  a  unit  and  from 
without,  heedless  of  its  dearer  import  between  the  mem 
bers,  and  which  we  reckon  in  dollars  and  cents  while 
we  overlook  its  deeper  score  of  motives  on  the  tables  of 
the  heart.  No  unfairness  of  an  opponent  strikes  so 
hard,  pierces  so  sore,  and  refuses  so  long  to  be  healed 
as  that  of  the  one  most  familiar,  whose  head  is  on  our 
breast.  We  can  defend  ourselves  against  a  foe ;  but 
they  whom  inveterate  fondness  has  made  part  of  our 
selves  are  too  close  for  us  either  to  ward  or  answer  the 
stroke.  I  fear  not  the  criticism  of  the  newspaper,  but 
that  of  the  heart,  and  the  censorship  by  my  side  of  such 
as  know  me  outweighs  all  other  blame.  Even  good- 
humored  banter,  that  questions  the  purity  of  our  designs, 
should  be  sparing  from  the  lips  we  daily  kiss.  Equity 
is  scant  enough  in  the  world,  whose  politics,  business, 
and  religion  are  but  diverse  modes  of  war ;  and  perfect 
honor  is  so  rare  that  we  scarce  need  to  have  the  dis 
paragement  pursue  us  to  our  fireside  and  board,  like  a 
billow  that  only  diminishes  its  volume  as  it  rolls  to  dash 
its  serpentine  folds  in  venomous  fury  on  the  shore  ; 
while  no  delight  is  more  exquisite  to  }Toung  and  old  than 
to  have  our  dispositions  and  aims  rightly  and  generously 
esteemed.  The  ship,  after  offing,  needs  repairs  in  port. 
Would  you  still  mutually  love,  rectify  at  home  the  beam, 
biassed  by  gusts  on  the  open  sea  of  life. 

Trust  is,  moreover,  needful,  that  this  manna  of  love 
may  keep ;  trust  being  justice  raised  to  the  highest 
power,  and  holding  more  of  the  heart  than  such  faith 
as  has  intellectual  propositions  for  its  base.  If  justice 
appreciates  what  another  has  done  or  meant  in  the  past, 


160  PRINCIPLES. 

trust  confides  present  and  future  to  his  hands  and  can 
not  conceive  of  his  ever  doing  or  intending  ill.     It  sells 
him  its  whole  estate  and  takes  no  security.     Mortgage 
implies  liability  to  die,  and  love  trusts  because  it  ignores 
death.      There  is  such  a  thrill  of  pleasure,  exceeding 
that  which  any  fondness  can  impart,  in  our  friend's  rest 
and  repose  in  our  righteous  purpose  toward  him  ;  and 
it  so  puts  us  on  our  honor,  which  is   dearer  than  any 
person  can  be  to  the  soul,  that  we  cannot  help  thinking 
in  his  children's  trust  in  him  God  himself  must  be  blest. 
But  just  in  the  same  proportion  distrust  is  offence  and 
woe.    It  is  a  spy  ;  and  we  alienate  those  whom  we  watch 
by  our    emissaries  dogging   their  steps,  opening  their 
letters,  or  searching  their  drawers  with  our  hands,  or 
cross-questioning  them  as  to  whom  they  saw,  what  they 
said,  or  whither  they  went  and  came  !    A  jealous  glance, 
a  suspicious  eye  upon  us,  is  the  dagger  whose  thrust  kills 
love.     Peering  observation  is  a  fetter  in  the  air,  heavier 
than  the  iron  chain  for  a  slave  ;  and  though  slave  be  some 
times  a  lover's  name,  no  man  or  woman  is  permanently 
inclined  to  barter  liberty  for  the  love  which  distrust  kills. 
Affection  may  wish  to  live  despite  insult,  and  in  a  grand 
sense  it  may  survive  treachery  ;  but  the  peculiar  tender 
ness  of  a  personal  intimacy  cannot  defend  itself  against 
and  survive  continual  stabs  of  doubt,  which  is  heart- 
murder  and  puts  to  actual  death.     A  great  deal  of  such 
slaying  is  not  reckoned  as  a  crime  on  any  criminal  code. 
When  one  expires  we  w^ould  always  know  the  cause  ;  but 
the  disease  is  often  too  obscure  for  any  inquest  to  as 
certain.     O  man  or  woman,  tormentor  with  your  daily 
envious  questions  and  peevish  pricks  of  the  one  you 
swore  to  cherish  as  your  own  flesh,  this  sensitive  object 


LOVE.  161 

for  which  your  tongue  is  a  lash  and  your  eye  a  sword, 
this  living  target  of  your  wrath  and  scorn,  will  draw  the 
last  breath  some  time,  and  then  you  will  have  nothing  to 
expend  your  temper  on,  or  brace  yourself  against  when 
you  are  nervous  !  Your  hungry  passions  will  lose  their 
habitual  food.  You  will  have  —  how  often  I  have  seen 
it !  —  a  great  funeral ;  and  the  flowers  laboriously 
wrought  by  some  hired  florist,  expert  for  obsequies, 
will  excite  much  admiring  remark.  But  I,  who  know 
something  of  your  history,  shall  have  my  attention 
drawn  rather  to  the  interwoven  crosses  and  the  broken 
harp-strings  than  to  the  wreaths  or  crowns !  In  the 
mournful  hush,  or  while  rises  the  solemn  prayer,  the 
inward  witness  is  plain  with  3^011,  and  in  its  silence  it 
says,  As  to  the  real  malady  in  this  case,  the  doctor  in 
his  statement  has  made  a  mistake !  It  was  deeper 
than  fever  or  cancer,  consumption  or  paralytic  stroke  ! 
Your  unkindness  made  the  decease  premature ;  your 
sharp  tongue  was  the  needle  that  stitched  every  thread 
in  that  shroud ;  your  anger  drove  every  nail  in  that 
coffin ;  your  exactions  robbed  that  poor  corse  of  half 
its  rightful  }rears,  and  put  a  full  moiety  of  the  misery 
into  all  the  days  of  strength  and  motion  with  you  it 
had.  With  many  of  us  it  has  not  come  to  that  yet. 
Let  us  prevent  such  noiseless  sentence,  which  is  the 
verdict  of  God !  Be  not  undertakers  in  }^our  own 
houses  for  }'our  own  kith  and  kin.  The  sexton  is 
sometimes  a  sham,  and  does  but  the  external  and 
ceremonial  part.  By  those  that  seem  to  lament  the 
departure  the  burial  is  made !  We  do  not  think  of 
this  when  our  envy  to  our  fellows  makes  things  hard 
and  rough.  We  file  on  their  nerves,  and  it  does  not 

11 


162  PRINCIPLES. 

enter  our  mind  that  we  are  going  to  file  them  utterly 
awa^y.  Nevertheless  are  we  all  in  each  other's  hands 
to  thrive  or  to  pine,  and  as  we  bless  or  curse  to 
lengthen  or  shorten  the  mortal  career.  We  think  by 
animadversions  to  correct  our  companions'  faults.  But 
distrust  never  created  an  atom  of  virtue  since  the  foun 
dation  of  the  world,  while  those  we  associate  with  tend 
to  the  nobilhVy  which  we  manifest  and  expect,  as  planets 
gravitate  to  the  sun.  The  saddest  sign  in  the  shop- 
door  is  that  familiar  placard,  "  No  Trust."  Over  our 
threshold  be  it  never  inscribed !  It  means  no  peace, 
harmon}',  or  continuing  love. 

But  still,  furthermore,  love  must  be  kept  by  that  sincer- 
it}^  which  dispenses  with  all  necessit}^  for  inquisition,  and 
is  the  ground  of  trust.  Sure  as  the  sleuth-hound  scents 
the  beast,  its  natural  enemy,  in  the  hole  however  hid, 
so  every  human  covert  invites  scrutin}r,  the  stricter  the 
more  the  burrower  is  near  by.  But  sincerity  must  not 
be  overstrained  or  misunderstood.  It  consists  in  my 
freely  communicating  to  you  whatever  facts,  being  my 
property,  are  b}T  our  mutual  relations  made  also  yours  ; 
not  in  admitting  into  others'  secrets  in  my  possession 
your  intrusive  probe.  You  must  not  define  my  sincerity 
by  your  hankering  curiosity.  No  two,  owning  each 
other,  are  absolute  owners.  We  are  held  in  a  responsi 
bility  of  manifold  ties.  Not  to  ask  or  wish  to  know 
what  belongs  to  a  third  part}T  who,  should  we  divulge 
it,  would  be  betrayed,  is  truer  in  friendship  than  that 
insisting  to  have  every  circumstance  disclosed  which  is 
as  false  as  an}T  other  form  of  selfish  hate.  Interroga 
tion  is  meanness,  and  the  grandeur  of  character  is 
abstinence  from  inquiry.  Forbearance  to  examine  into 


LOVE.  163 

what  your  partner  withholds  is  the  measure  of  your 
affectional  worth.  We  must  confess,  truth  is  in  our 
community  the  missing  link.  Sympathy  is  a  drug, 
and  may  become  a  poison  if  given  in  an  overdose. 
Forgiveness  we  carry  to  excess,  till  the  divine  attribute 
becomes  a  human  vice.  Capital  crimes  have  sunk  from 
two  hundred  to  two,  — murder  and  treason  ;  and  "  we 
give  the  traitor  an  office  and  pardon  the  murderer  out." 
Humanitj",  ever-growing,  a  modern  virtue  and  hot  an 
cient  even  in  name,  is  the  crown  and  glory  of  our  time  ; 
and  the  French  Leroux,  were  he  alive  on  earth,  would 
see  that  his  solidarity  has  come.  But  verity  is,  even 
for  the  shrine  of  compassion,  a  sacrifice  too  dear. 
Were  one  child  to  starve  to  death  within  its  borders, 
the  United  States  would  be  ashamed.  But  should  we 
dare  to  poll  the  nation  for  a  majority  on  the  question 
whether  to  lie  rather  than  tell  what  we  think  our  inter 
locutor  should  not  claim.  What  big  liars  in  pulpit  and 
press  and  parlor  and  court !  When  your  child  tells  a 
lie,  says  one,  confess  to  it  you  have  told  a  hundred ! 
Certainty  less  on  pity  and  commiseration  than  on  can 
dor  should  preaching  now  lay  its  stress.  But  when  you 
complain  that  your  friend  has  not  been  frank  with  you, 
reflect  whether  your  indiscreet  quer}-  have  not  forced  his 
closeness,  as  the  clam  and  oyster,  at  the  touch  of  your 
stick,  shut  their  valves.  Generosity  opens  the  shell, 
and  love  is  the  mother  of  that  truth  which  becomes 
in  turn  her  bocVv-guard  and  defence. 

In  fine,  love  is  maintained  not  by  uxorious  doting, 
but  by  respect.  Is  the  woman  fond  of  expression  and 
demonstration,  not  forgiving  coldness,  as  George  Eliot 
says,  even  when  it  is  the  mask  of  love  ?  No  token  is 


164  PRINCIPLES. 

more  precious  to  her  than  the  respect  which  is  the  prem 
ise  of  her  personality.  She  resents  being  treated  as  a 
tool  or  a  thing.  No  soft  humility  can  satisfy  her  with 
being  absorbed  by  the  man.  Let  neither  obliterate  nor 
cancel,  but  bestow  each  the  other  ever  afresh !  God's 
judgment-seat  is  in  every  breast,  and  we  should  be  for 
midable  to  each  other  as  well  as  dear,  never  taking  for 
granted  that  our  chosen  and  devoted  second  self  will  be 
sympathizer  and  sharer  with  us  in  any  sin,  but  recog 
nizing  the  added  conscience  to  make  of  our  several 
souls  no  support  in  evil  but  a  compound  battery  against 
wrong,  and  to  find  in  our  mate  the  other  wing  for  our 
spiritual  ascent. 

But  in  this  list  of  conditions  I  must  add  that,  after 
all,  love  is  its  own  warrant,  and  is  a  self-preserver. 
When  genuine,  it  scarce  needs  any  foreign  sta3T.  Like 
some  rich  merchant,  insuring  his  own  ventures  and 
taking  out  no  policy  for  his  ships,  it  is  free  from  care, 
invents  the  aid,  improvises  and  affords  the  solace  and 
protection  it  needs.  It  keeps  itself  and  keeps  us  with 
it,  and  predicts  immortality  while  it  blesses  time  ;  for  in 
its  height  and  purity  it  can  have  no  idea  of  extinction 
in  its  object  or  in  itself.  If  it  died,  God  would  !  He 
is  it. 

Love  supplies  its  own  fuel,  lights  its  own  fire,  and  is 
self- feeding  like  the  sun.  Does  that  flaming  ball  need  a 
return  from  the  planet  that  it  may  burn  and  shine  still? 
I  am  conscious  of  a  sentiment  alike  independent  of  the 
objects  by  which  it  is  occasioned,  but  not  created  or 
caused.  So,  as  Shakspeare  says,  'tis  "far  from  acci 
dent."  It  needs  not  even  to  be  known  to  the  person 
on  whom  it  is  fixed ;  and  if,  when  tendered,  it  be  not 


LOYE.  165 

reciprocated,  it  will  not  be  withdrawn.  It  has,  once 
arising,  a  character  of  necessit}'  to  abide,  not  living  on 
favor  of  any  sort  from  woman  or  man  ;  for  God  is  alwa3'S 
left,  though  the  human  creature  be  ungrateful  as  a  gulf 
or  cold  as  stone.  Wives  are  with  some  multiplied, 
and  mistresses  forsaken,  and  the  youth  or  maiden  once 
so  gracious  is,  without  a  twinge,  seen  in  another's  arms  ; 
but  Dante's  Beatrice  or  Michael  Angelo's  Vittoria  Co- 
lonna,  to  all  who  know  the  secret  and  are  worthy  to  be 
initiated  to  degrees  conferred  by  no  college  or  lodge, 
stands  for  a  sentiment  immortal  as  the  soul  which  it 
thrills.  Why,  after  long  absence  of  many  years,  should 
a  woman  on  her  death-bed  feel  her  heart  glow  for  one 
with  whom  she  has  had,  and  can  hope  for,  no  terms  in 
this  or  any  world  but  of  cordial  respect  ?  Because  there 
are  emotions,  sensual  souls  and  unbelievers  in  virtue  are 
strangers  to,  which  outlast  all  opinions  and  calculations, 
and  justify  Balzac's  definition  that  love  is  u  a  transfer  of 
the  me  into  another,  without  whom  we  cannot  live.'* 
Therefore  the  heart,  which  disease  eats  into,  only  widens 
its  room  for  the  dear  image  that  shall  be  carried  away 
from  the  consuming  of  its  mortal  chambers,  as  we  save 
the  pictures  from  a  burning  house.  Let  me,  in  passing, 
mention  some  particular  traits. 

First,  love  gives  no  account  of  itself.  It  acknowl 
edges  no  higher  court.  It  obeys  the  summons  to  no 
tribunal  of  reason  or  conscience,  far  less  of  social  custom 
or  human  law,  as  above  itself.  Doubtless,  it  is  reason 
able  and  right.  There  are  expressions  in  this  world  to 
which  it  may  lay  no  claim.  In  the  living  web  which  we 
call  society,  it  will  tear  no  thread.  It  guards  every  real 
relation,  for  it  weaves  it,  and  unravels  not  its  own  work. 


166  PRINCIPLES. 

The  soul  of  honor  is  its  offspring,  and  naught  dishon 
orable  can  it  do. 

Secondly,  it  is  not  a  wish  or  an  appetite.  Were  it 
not  an  absolute  principle,  it  might  be  an  infinite  desire. 
But  it  craves  nothing  for  itself.  It  is  not  recipiency, 
but  communication.  Self-love  is  the  cistern,  but  it  is 
the  spring.  It  emanates,  whatever  else  may  absorb. 
Hence  its  longevity  is  in  its  original  activity.  What  is 
in  the  passive  voice  may  pass  away,  and  that  alone  is 
eternal  whose  cause  of  motion  is  in  itself.  Therefore, 
it  is  not  enough  to  be  loved,  even  by  God ;  our  title  is 
not  perfect  unless  we  love  Him. 

Thirdly,  it  consists  not  in,  nor  subsists  upon,  any 
expression,  kiss,  caress,  or  embrace.  It  depends  not  on 
giving  or  taking  of  signs.  It  is  for  ever  conscious  of 
inability  to  tell  itself,  or  be  told  by  those  it  possesses, 
as  Deity  cannot  be  expended  or  wholly  manifest  in  an}7 
words  or  works.  It  chooses  demonstrations  which  do  not 
exhaust,  but  react  and  deepen.  If  it  ebb  in  expression, 
it  is  like  the  ebbing  of  the  sea  for  a  speed}'  flood,  only 
washing  some  other  shore  till  the  tide  shall  turn. 

Fourthly,  its  peculiar  delight  is  not  in  the  pleasure, 
but  in  the  self-forgetful  life  of  its  exercise.  It  is  not  the 
pride  one  may  have  in  being  dear  to  another,  but  the 
balm  to  wounds  that  bleed  in  ever}'  breast.  Unless  it 
heal,  it  cannot  be  whole.  The  sacred  oil  flowed  down 
Aaron's  beard  to  the  hem  of  his  garment ;  but  no  oint 
ment  for  priest  or  king,  and  no  alabaster-box  for  the 
Master's  feet,  ever  bore  the  health  and  joy  of  its  con 
scious  trickling  through  the  bosom,  and,  like  some  subtle 
element  we  pour  to  search  into  slight  crevices,  finding 
out  every  sore  place  in  our  heart.  Did  Jesus  have  sore 


LOVE.  167 

places  in  his  heart,  which  even  the  woman,  who  was  a 
sinner,  knew  how  to  discover  and  soothe?  Was  he, 
who  came  to  save  the  lost,  by  a  lost  sinner  saved  from 
pain  himself  ?  Surety  so  only  can  the  situation  be  ex 
plained  !  What  cared  he  for  the  precious  paste  or  liquid 
on  his  limbs  ?  Was  it  a  smooth  feeling  on  his  skin  by 
which  he  was  moved?  Did  the  woman's  fingers  touch 
the  tired  feet  with  a  relief  no  spikenard  could  bring? 
And  was  the  washing  of  her  tears  which,  whatever  her 
fault,  were  holy  water  such  as  no  cathedral-basin  ever 
held,  a  cleansing  for  him  whom  the  church  declares  to 
have  had  no  share  in  Adam's  fall  ?  The  woman's  feel 
ing  was  to  him  more  than  her  weeping,  or  the  costly 
fragrance  of  her  gift,  or  soft  clasp  of  hands  with  which 
it  was  bestowed.  Is  there  any  refreshment  like  that  of 
being  loved?  Is  there  any  inn  for  the  weary,  wayfaring, 
and  footsore  traveller  like  that  it  opens?  That  wo 
man  knew  there  was  a  famishing  which  even  Simon's 
board  could  not  stay  !  Woman's  love  is  more  disinter 
ested  than  man's.  Is  not  her  very  sin  a  self-sacrifice? 
Therefore  the  Christ's  sentence  on  it  was  so  mild  !  Man 
is  the  aggressor.  He  solicits,  and  the  woman  yields. 
Solomon,  as  an  expert,  renders  his  judgment  that  the 
strange  woman  is  a  "  deep  ditch."  He  had  often  been  in 
it,  but  the  deepest  and  the  last  ditch  was  himself  !  The 
woman  withholds  nothing  when  she  has  given  her  heart. 
Is  she  lost  when  she  deliberates?  Woe  to  the  man,  here 
and  beyond  the  grave,  who  forces  the  weaker  vessel  to 
struggle  with  the  more  strong  !  Rather  than  that  this 
crime  lie  at  my  door,  or  have  the  groans  of  one  deceived 
sister  disturb  my  slumbers,  or  her  blood  cleave  to  the 
skirts  of  my  garments,  let  any  other  transgression  named 


168  PRINCIPLES. 

in  the  decalogue  arise  to  stare  me  in  the  face  at  the  judg 
ment-day  !  O  tempter  of  the  helpless,  whose  self-denial 
hides  your  blame,  all  the  courtesy  with  which  through 
slow  and  constant  pressure  you  mislead  is  but  veneered 
villany,  the  polish  of  the  weapon  with  which  you  destroy. 
Despising  }*our  seductive  arts,  I  denounce  you  on  earth 
and  summon  }TOU  to  answer  at  the  final  bar.  Your  voice 
may  be  eloquent  at  the  forum  or  in  the  sacred  desk. 
You  may  add  perjury  to  lust,  and  meanness  to  both ; 
but  the  ring  of  false  oaths  will  sink  to  a  whisper  when 
the  time  for  equivocation  and  forswearing  has  gone  by. 
I  would  not,  as  the  Lord  did  not,  excuse  the  feebler  sex 
from  the  iniquity  they  partake,  but  only  plead  that  the 
other  party  has  in  it  the  lion's  share. 

Love  as  a  sentiment  has  no  limits.  It  is  more  than 
sleep  for  "hurt  minds."  Lazarus  stays  not  in  his 
tomb  when  he  hears  its  voice.  It  is  the  chief  virtue 
and  great  atonement  for  sin.  "  Her  sins  are  forgiven, 
for  she  loved  much,"  is  the  boldest  sentence  in  the  Bible, 
which  we  scarce  dare  read,  and  which  it  must  have 
taken  the  Pharisee's  breath  away  to  hear.  Love  is  the 
source  of  purtty.  What  were  air  and  water  as  puri 
fiers  without  fire  !  The  sun  cleanses  as  well  as  creates  ; 
and  if  love  contract  a  stain,  it  will  yet  wash  like  cloth 
of  gold. 

Lastly,  love  has  no  designs  on  its  object.  It  has  no 
designs  at  all.  It  exists  for  and  in  itself;  and  those  it 
possesses  exist  for  it.  It  is  its  own  end,  and  the  be 
ginning  and  end  of  the  creation.  Therefore  we  cannot 
get  round  or  be}rond  to  master  or  measure  it ;  but  it 
masters  and  measures  us,  and  swears  us  to  fidelity  and 
sanctity,  passing  all  social  engagements  and  altar- vows, 


LOVE.  169 

administering  an  oath  to  bless  and  never  hurt  what  is 
in  its  bond.  As  mayor  of  the  city  of  God,  it  embodies 
every  statute  against  what  is  injurious  or  unjust.  The 
mountain-torrent  is  stronger  a  million-fold  than  man's 
hand,  }Tet  how  his  touch  guides  it  in  channels  of  beauty 
and  use !  Duty  makes  of  love  not  an  overwhelming 
freshet,  but  a  fertilizing  stream.  Very  humble  and  fa 
miliar  are  the  tasks  which  our  affections  set.  Rarely 
they  call  us  to  what  is  counted  sublime  ;  of  ten  thou 
sand  ragged  bits,  they  make  the  fair  temple  and  the  easy 
path.  By  no  seer  has  heaven  been  revealed.  By  no 
straining  eye  can  it  be  discerned.  The}^  only  will 
reach  it,  who  by  self-denial  make  a  stepping-stone  of 
the  earth. 

Love  is  truth !  It  has  no  licentious  secrets,  but  a 
lawful  privacy,  all  intrusion  on  which  is  profane.  As 
the  bird  hides  her  nest  amongst  the  leaves  of  the 
thicket,  not  for  deceit  but  to  be  true  to  her  nature  and 
her  offspring,  and  would  be  false  to  herself  and  to  her 
Author,  if  with  foolish  candor  she  exposed  the  delicate 
beaut3T  of  her  eggs  to  every  prowling  eye  or  careless 
tread  of  the  passing  foot,  so  no  frankness  could  impart 
to  vulgar  curiosity  the  truth  of  responsive  breasts.  Of 
all  eavesdroppers  and  overhearers  he  is  basest  who 
lurks,  walks  softly  on  tiptoe,  and  puts  his  eye  and  ear 
to  the  ke}'-hole  to  catch  the  gentle  confession  or  sur 
prise  the  ingenuous  blush.  There  are  scenes  in  which 
kith  and  kin  have  no  part  to  act,  and  from  which  churls 
and  tattlers  should  be  whipped.  But  all  privilege  of 
mutual  converse  apart  has  a  solemnity  which  no  gav 
throng  is  overshadowed  by.  If  it  be  perverted,  a 
heavier  responsibility  is  attached.  But  there  is  a  love 


170  PRINCIPLES. 

which  avoids  collisions  and  clears  all  obstacles,  as  a 
bird  threads,  without  touching,  the  boughs  in  the  wood. 
So  interior  and  ideal  is  it,  that  not  even  by  the  wan 
dering  of  the  eye  on  its  object  can  it  be  caught.  It  is 
a  simple  sentiment,  but  not  therefore  less  lasting  or 
strong.  A  sentiment  or  idea,  in  David  Hume's,  as 
in  ah1  sceptical  or  materialistic  philosophy,  is  but  the 
ghost  and  remnant  of  a  sensation.  But  were  sensations 
in  nature  the  real  powers,  which  in  thoughts  only  dwin 
dle  and  in  feelings  are  diluted  and  reduced,  then  beasts 
were  mightier  than  men !  Vulgar  people  have  main 
tained  that  on  sexual  appetite  rests  the  commonwealth. 
On  the  attraction  betwixt  man  and  woman  society  is 
based  ;  but  its  refined  is  greater  than  its  gross  force, 
and  its  weight  is  like  the  gravitation  of  the  globe. 
That  is  the  most  ardent  and  enduring  love  wherein  is 
no  aim  at  pleasure  or  posterity,  but  which  survives  all 
earthly  contingencies  and  knows  it  can  be  out  of  the 
body  and  in  any  other  or  heaventy  form.  The  hen  ruf 
fling  for  her  chickens  at  the  hawk,  and  the  walrus 
making  herself  a  target  for  her  young  against  the 
hunter's  spear,  disprove  the  selfish  theory,  as  much  as 
do  men  fighting  for  their  homes,  and  mothers  sacrific 
ing  themselves  for  their  offspring  ever}T  day.  Whoever 
loves  would  yield  every  drop  of  blood  for  the  beloved, 
and  would  not  take  in  pay  for  the  affection  a  single 
tear.  This  fact,  not  any  temple,  tower,  or  snow 
capped  hill,  is  the  glory  of  the  world.  My  friend,  I 
love  you  not  for  your  favor  or  aught  you  can  give  for 
nry  delectation,  but  for  the  very  nature  or  quality  that 
you  are !  Nay,  if  you  hate  or  despise  me,  I  should 
love  you  still,  and  you  cannot  repel  the  sentiment ;  for, 


LOYE.  171 

• 

as  Goethe  saj^s,  "  if  I  love  j^ou,  what  is  that  to  3-011?" 
Electricity  travels  by  a  sure  iron  path,  over  land  or 
under  sea ;  but  my  heart  knows  a  cable  never  broken, 
a  wire  that  is  in  order  and  always  works  !  Away  with 
the  notion  that  fondness  is  indispensable  to  nourish 
regard  !  Feeling  may  be  in  inverse  ratio  to  demonstra 
tion.  How  often,  in  this  mystery  of  mutual  communi 
cation,  people  are  moved  by  what  we  suppress  and 
withhold  !  I  love  my  country,  but  cannot  embrace  it 
with  mj-  arms,  although  sometimes  a  returning  king  has 
saluted,  by  lying  down  on  its  soil,  or  a  poet,  like  Byron, 
sent  it  the  farewell  of  a  song.  Christians  love  their 
Lord,  though  they  cannot  touch,  and  only. in  imagina 
tion  embrace,  his  image.  It  is  a  lower  greeting  when 
crucifix  or  picture  is  handled  or  kissed  by  some  devotee. 
It  is  no  vanity  for  a  worshipper  to  love  his  God,  though 
he  cannot  locate  or  metaphysically  define  him  or  prove 
the  personality  he  adores. 

Is  sensation  the  sun  and  is  sentiment  the  pale  moon 
in  the  firmament  of  the  soul?  There  are  affections  in 
expressible  because  intense  !  There  are  exercises  and 
emotions  animal  men  know  nothing  of,  to  which  their 
coarser  movement  is  a  smoky  and  smouldering  fire. 
Love  cannot,  in  its  highest  flight  on  earth,  quite  get  rid 
of  the  outward  form.  But  it  has  learned  that  our 
body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  that  "  holi 
ness  becometh  thy  house,  O  Lord,  for  ever ; "  and  it 
worships  God  less  in  dedicated  courts  or  the  sanctuary 
of  the  sky  than  in  the  human  frame,  which  it  exalts 
and  sublimes.  In  Michael  Angelo's  forms  of  saint, 
sibyl,  and  seer  we  seem  to  behold  all  that  human  crea 
tures  can  be  or  do  or  say.  What  need  of  the  long  his- 


172  PRINCIPLES. 

» 

tory  or  drama  on  the  stage  ?     Thomas  Couture  calls  the 
brush  the  best  of  pens. 

Pure  love  is  peace.  If  it  long  for  its  object,  God 
comes  and  says:  "Am  I  not  enough?  Art  not  con 
tent  with  me,  in  all  this  order  and  beauty  without,  and 
the  witnessing  spirit  within  ?  "  But  neither  the  divine 
nor  the  human  can  be  loved  as  an  abstraction.  "NVe 
must  shape  it  as  alive  and  conscious  to  our  thought,  as 
a  harmony  to  the  inward  eye  and  ear.  There  is  an  ex 
ternal  and  an  internal  perception.  Not  those  who  accu 
rately  distinguish  diverse  shades,  and  are  farthest  from 
being  color-blind,  are  certain  to  dress  with  most  taste. 
A  performer  may  know  the  musical  chords  to  perfec 
tion,  and  not  play  with  expression  or  be  able  to  com 
pose  a  piece.  A  rhetorician  is  not  apt  to  be  eloquent, 
and  I  knew  a  complete  anatomist  in  marble  who  could 
carve  no  beautiful  work.  How  profound  is  the  dis 
cernment  of  beaut}' !  It  is  so  deep  it  knows  all  is  well ; 
and  its  transport  is  in  no  one  fading  shape,  but  in  the 
universe.  There  is  a  restless  sort  of  genius  to  which 
nothing  is  settled,  and  which  would  tear  up  the  very 
platform  on  which  it  stands.  But  perceptive  love 
adores  God  in  the  creation  he  has  made,  and  thinks  it 
the  best  he  could  do  up  to  date ;  and  it  fixes  on  his 
creature  for  no  half-hour  of  desperate  joy,  but  with 
look  of  continual  bliss  and  eternal  hope.  For  love  has 
no  limits.  There  is  naught  it  will  not  do  or  endure. 
All  it  is  or  has  it  gives.  Nothing  can  it  withhold. 
AYith  itself  ever}7  thing  goes.  It  is  Godhead  in  mortal 
dress  ;  for  what  is  God  but  infinite  communication  and 
perpetual  gift?  The  lover's  mistake  and  the  tragedy  of 
time  is  to  take  or  covet  the  outward  before  the  inward 
is  won  or  bestows  itself. 


LOVE.  173 

To  illustrate  what  I  cannot  define,  let  me  "draw  a 
portrait,  real  and  ideal  too.  I  see,  a  young  girl  who 
exchanges  with  her  lover  glances  and  the  clasp  of 
hands,  when  suddenly,  in  my  vision,  he  faints  on  the 
journey  and  vanishes  away.  The  object  is  gone,  but 
the  sentiment  remains.  They  who  look  on  and  pass  by 
say  she  need  not  sacrifice  to  it  her  }*outh,  the  bloom  and 
beauty  of  her  da}'s !  Some  other  companionship  will 
be  as  acceptable  and  become  even  more  dear.  The 
sweets  of  domestic  life  for  her  are  still  in  store,  and 
her  children,  to  a  long  line,  shall  yet  rise  up  and  call 
their  mother  blessed.  But  not  so  ;  her  wordless  oath 
she  keeps  till  death.  She  cherishes  the  image  of  the 
bridegroom  unespoused.  She  reserves  her  wedding- 
garment  till  her  arrival  among  those  whom  the  Revela 
tion  pictures  as  clad  all  in  white ;  and  no  household 
happiness,  where  the  morning  salutations  of  a  faithful 
partnership  never  fail,  and  little  ones  run  gayly  about  in 
their  guileless  sport,  can  know  how  rare  is  her  vision 
ary  bliss.  It  is  called  romantic,  a  mirage  of  fancj7,  a 
mere  memory  and  a  dream.  But  when  the  gra}T-haired 
woman  herself  at  last  departs,  does  she  not,  a  maiden 
still,  find  the  long-lost  mate?  Yes,  if  God's  promise 
holds,  his  creatures  will  keep  tryst.  This  ecstasy  of 
imagination  and  of  ideal  love  proves  that  naught  is  so 
real  and  solid  on  earth  as  the  gleam  and  glamour  of 
hope.  As  the  train  I  had  taken  passage  in  rolled  on 
toward  the  cit}T  station,  which  was  yet  miles  afar,  a  lit 
tle  boy  pointed  out  of  the  window  to  the  State  House 
dome,  and  said  to  his  father,  "  That  shiny  place  is 
where  I  want  to  go ! "  It  was  but  the  glimmer  of 
myriad  sunbeams  from  the  State  House  dome,  as  they 


174  PRINCIPLES. 

shifted  and  danced,  that  was  in  his  eye.  Yet  it  was 
more  substantial  than  all  the  architecture  of  the  stony 
street  that  should  so  soon  entrance  his  gaze.  Our  dis 
tant  view  is  an  annunciation  of  the  heaven  that  can 
but  continue  its  own  ever-prospective  bliss.  The  little 
girl  gathered  up  the  }Tellow  straw  from  the  floor  of  the 
car  rattling  on  the  highway,  and  smiled  to  mark  its 
golden  color,  more  intense  as  the  open  window  poured 
in  the  bright  rays.  What  gold  will  ever  charm  her  so 
much?  Cheap  seem  the  elements  of  our  daily  life. 
But  in  the  light  of  those  affections  that  come  from 
the  heaven  to  which  they  reach  back,  what  a  transfigu 
ration  the  coarsest  circumstances  take !  We  all,  like 
Peter  and  James  and  John,  have  with  Jesus  gone  up 
into  the  Mount. 

Love  finds  its  dignity  in  its  depth.  First,  it  is  in  our 
thought,  next  in  the  look,  afterward  in  the  voice,  and 
last  in  the  touch  or  hand ;  arid  a  perfect  contentment 
in  absence  attends  the  sentiment  in  its  higher  degrees. 
Its  growing  intensity  dispenses  with  bodily  presence, 
and  makes  it  strike  with  electric  speed  through  earth 
and  time.  It  is  what  Jesus  called  the  "coming  like 
lightning  of  the  Son  of  Man ;  "  and  it  can  find  what  it 
cares  for  in  heaven  as  well.  There  are  faces  which  we 
can  see  clearly  without  the  aid  of  light !  How  they 
beam  upon  us  through  the  spaces  and  the  years,  and 
light  up  midnight  for  us  as  we  lie  on  our  bed, 
though  they  mayhap  vanished  long  ago  away  !  If  per 
chance  any  one  near  by  frown  or  speak  roughly,  we 
cannot  hear  the  harshness  or  see  the  scowl  for  the 
charm  and  melody  unsuspected  by  revilers,  whose 
voices  fill  the  air.  There  is  sound  philosoph}*  in  the 


LOVE.  175 

language  by  which  being  put  to  the  question  denoted 
instruments  of  torture  in  the  Inquisition  ;  and  a  certain 
mode  of  interrogation  signifies  still  the  chief  penalty 
and  pain.  But  we  want  no  explanations  or  apologies 
from  those  whom  we  hold  dear,  and  b}T  none  are  we  held 
dear  who  insist  on  them  from  us.  Kind  treatment  we 
would  have  for  what  is  sore  in  our  body  or  mind ;  but, 
O  friend,  leave  to  a  wholesome  and  healing  neglect 
even  the  wounds  you  have  yourself  poured  balm  into 
and  bound  up  !  Inquire  not  too  much  into  your  bosom- 
companion's  griefs,  nor  compel  him  to  tell  all  the  tale 
of  his  life.  Much  and  all  will  be  told  to  those  that  do 
not  ask  ;  and  you  shall  have  the  secrets  into  which  you 
do  not  pry. 

What  a  wonder  is  wrought  in  such  communication ! 
We  want  for  food  or  stimulant  no  turning  c£  water  into 
wine  or  multiplied  fishes  and  loaves  of  bread,  nor  care 
we  to  cast  out  any  demons  but  those  of  jealousy  and 
doubt.  Then  I  know  that  the  tenure  of  my  being  can 
not  slip,  when  I  can  perceive  no  difference  between  my 
feeling  for  another  and  another's  feeling  for  me ;  for 
the  mighty  cause  of  blessedness  like  this  is  not  a  power 
that  leaves  a  miracle  half  done. 

More  than  moral,  even  immortal,  is  our  love.  W^e 
promise  it  to  the  child  that  will  do  right.  But  true 
love  has  no  such  condition  in  God  or  man.  "  If  you 
are  naughty,  I  shall  not  love  3'ou,"  said  the  nurse.  "  I 
shall  love  you  whether  you  are  naughty  or  not,"  replied 
the  little  boy.  Which  had  the  divinity?  I  love  a  cer 
tain  nature  or  being;  the  love  does  not  depend  on  the 
person's  behavior.  I  will  not  threaten,  for  I  could  not 
succeed  to  withdraw  it,  were  he  or  she  evil  to  others  or 


176  PEINCIPLES. 

unfaithful  to  myself.  His  or  her  goodness  and  purity 
shall  touch  my  heart  to  finer  issues,  but  never  dam  the 
genial  current  up,  because  no  morality  is  so  deep  as  its 
spring.  It  seems  indeed,  when  we  love  one,  there  never 
was  a  time  when  we  did  not  know  and  feel  the  love. 
It  is  Plato's  pre-existent  soul.  The  maiden  asks  the 
man  why  he  loves  her,  for  she  wonders  and  cannot  tell ; 
but  he  marvels  no  less,  and  cannot  tell  wherefore  or 
how,  or  whence  or  whither,  only  that  he  loves.  Either 
can  affirm  the  positive  what  which  neither  can  fathom  ; 
but,  like  one  that  gazes  on  some  wrinkling  bottomless 
tarn  in  the  woods,  only  surve}^  the  surface  of  the  sol 
emn  fact.  Love  is  the  vent  toward  the  individual  of 
the  whole  heart  of  mankind  and  of  God.  But  how 
lover  and  beloved  are  transformed  by  their  mutual  sen 
timent,  all  c^in  note.  Verily,  what  it  cannot  make  beau 
tiful  must  be  an  awkward  form  and  ugly  face !  How 
it  moulds  and  tints  the  features,  and  is  that  power  that 
prophesies  in  the  Revelation,  "Behold,  I  make  all 
things  new  "  !  It  is  regeneration  and  religion,  and  the 
vastness  of  the  feeling  can  never  be  quite  given  to  or 
received  by  the  human  object,  but  escapes  in  thanks  to 
the  infinite  receptacle  and  source.  "I  thank  God  for 
your  kindness  "  is  a  Mohammedan  phrase.  Let  woman 
judge  of  man  b}'  this  test.  If  he  does  not  worship  the 
Giver  in  the  gift,  and  enshrine  that  living  boon  in  the 
sanctit}'  of  devotion  and  prayer  ;  if,  irreverently  rushing, 
he  invades  her  sphere,  or  by  a  word  or  sign  desecrates 
the  shrine  before  which  he  should  tremble  with  awe 
even  in  his  hope  and  joy,  —  then  he  is  a  pretender,  who 
will  possess  only  to  desert  and  betray. 

How  marvellous  the  feeling,  possession  with  which 


LOVE.  177 

makes  one  little  face  eclipse  the  sun  and  moon !  The 
artist's  nimbus  of  glory  around  any  saintly  countenance 
shall  fade  away ;  but  the  dear  features  we  have  once 
loved  will  hold  their  fast  color.  The  cow  and  the 
sheep,  that  nibble  and  chew  all  day  long  in  the  field, 
shall  lose  their  appetite  and  their  pasture  too ;  but  the 
taste  shall  abide,  of  which  disinterested  affection  is 
both  the  feeder  and  the  food.  There  is  a  house  in 
us  which  it  inhabits,  and  both  builds  and  keeps  from 
all  false  fondness  clear  and  clean.  It  is  that  prophet 
an  apostle  spoke  of,  to  which  the  spirits  are  subject. 
For  it  heaven  is  not  too  large,  nor  eternity  too  long. 

If  any  Cato  of  virtue,  who  never  felt  that  flame  which 
spires  into  the  line  of  beauty,  object  to  the  height  even 
above  the  moral  sense  which  it  attains,  let  the  censor 
remember  that  God  is  love,  and  not  conscience,  which 
implies  a  sense  of  sin  ;  and  what  monsters  conscientious 
angels  would  be  !  But,  though  righteousness  can  never 
mount  to  love,  love  must  descend  in  righteousness,  which 
is  the  eternal  law  for  God  and  angels  and  men.  The 
question  is  but  of  cause  and  consequence,  the  fountain, 
and  the  stream. 


12 


178  PRINCIPLES. 


VII. 

LIFE. 

T  IFE  cannot  proceed  in  societ}^  or  the  world  without 
•*-'  death.  Birth  and  death  are  like  two  guide-boards 
at  the  crossings  of  country  roads  leading  to  the  same 
cit}T,  and  we  read  one  direction  on  the  cradle  and  the 
grave.  The  doctrine,  so  curiously  traced  and  clearly  ex 
pounded  by  Darwin,  in  regard  to  the  structure  of  plants 
and  animals,  that  there  is  a  principle  of  selection  and 
variation  to  transform  species  so  that  the  fittest  will  sur 
vive,  was  anticipated  in  its  spiritual  meaning  thousands 
of  }*ears  ago.  It  is  the  commonplace  of  Christianity  that 
a  man  must  be  born  again,  and  that  the  willing  loss  is 
the  saving  of  one's  life.  What  is  birth  but  death  to  a 
former  state  of  the  babe  that  shivers  as  it  comes,  wink 
ing  at  the  candle  or  the  sun,  into  a  world  to  which  the 
womb  is  a  prison?  Out  of  the  world  of  the  senses  into 
that  of  thought  and  love  and  worship  it  will  in  due  time 
be  brought  forth.  What  the  earth  is  to  it  at  first  will 
then  seem  a  narrower  jail  than  ever  can  one's  mother's 
breast.  Life  out  of  death  is  the  law  of  nature  which 
I  would  unfold. 

Even  in  the  mineral  kingdom  its  commencement  or 
prediction  appears.  Something  in  the  primeval  rock 
from  immemorial  time  struggled  up  toward  life.  A 
rude  beginning  of  organization  is  in  granite  and  gneiss 


LIFE.  179 

and  mica  and  slate.  The  huge  strata  of  the  globe 
attempt  and  undertake  to  blossom.  Their  flowers  are 
gems,  —  diamond  and  ruby,  sapphire  and  emerald, 
amethyst  and  pearl.  Why  are  these  called  precious 
stones,  but  that  they  express  the  ascent  of  matter 
towards  man,  on  whose  hand  they  shall  sparkle  and 
in  whose  diadem  they  shall  shine  ?  The  diamond  means 
truth,  the  ruby  love,  the  pearl  purity,  the  sapphire 
faith,  and  the  amethyst  hope.  In  cold  and  senseless 
things  the  Lord  has  begun  to  knit  living  ties  of  affec 
tion  and  honor,  and  to  weave  his  creatures  and  children 
together.  What  is  the  jewel  but  the  mineral  dying  to 
itself,  —  that  is,  to  those  first  properties  of  size,  coarse 
ness,  opacity,  and  a  peculiar  specific  gravity  that  made 
it  mineral,  —  and  putting  on  the  color,  weight,  density, 
temperature,  and  transparency  into  which  out  of  the 
vast,  almost  formless  layers  it  is  born  again,  and  be 
comes  a  gem  and  regeneration  of  the  clod.  A  German 
philosopher,  Zollner,  thinks  that  in  crystallization  there 
may  be  sensibilit}T.  It  is  at  least  affectation  of  life. 

In  the  vegetable,  but  more  marked,  is  this  statute  of 
death  as  the  condition  of  life.  The  seed  dies  in  the 
ground  to  live  more  gloriously  above  it.  The  bark  dies 
on  eveiy  plant  and  tree,  that  the  life  it  protects  and 
encloses  ma}'  expand  and  flourish.  Some  species  of 
trees  continue  this  process  of  dying  to  live  again  and 
more  abundantly  as  long  as  they  stand  in  the  dusky 
wood.  The  pine-tree  drops  year  after  year  its  decayed 
branches  so  as  to  keep  its  trunk  straight  and  round  and 
tapering,  and  lift  its  evergreen  top  more  aloft  into  the 
skies,  with  what  a  musical  murmuring  in  the  wind  for 
its  voice,  a  song  at  once  of  triumph  and  a  sigh  over  the 
grave ! 


180  PRINCIPLES. 

These  are  outward  figures  and  prophecies  of  the  fact 
that  in  the  animal  and  human  kingdom,  too,  death  is 
the  condition  of  life.  Even  in  the  beast  is  illustration 
of  the  invariable  rule.  It  is  common,  especially  for 
theologians,  to  sa}'  the  animal  races  make  no  progress. 
But  of  either  races  or  individuals  the  saying  is  not 
true.  Why  should  an  old  fox  be  the  title  we  apply 
to  a  man  as  sly  as  is  sometimes  the  governor  of  a 
State,  if  the  old  fox  had  not  carried  cunning  a  little 
farther  than  the  }'oung  one?  When  a  dog  picked  up 
the  purse  containing  nearly  a  thousand  dollars  which  a 
man  had  dropped,  and  trotted  swiftly  after  to  turn 
round  ahead,  and  courteously  present  it  to  the  owner, 
who  afterwards  rewarded  him  with  a  silver  collar,  was 
it  not  a  cultivated  and  intelligent  generosity  which  no 
puppy  of  a  month  could  have  displayed?  The  lower 
tribes  are  raised  by  converse  with  man.  Lions  and 
tigers,  wild  cats  and  leopards,  die  somewhat  to  their 
native  ferocity.  They  moderate,  and  under  a  kindly 
keeper's  hand,  with  some  evident  effort  hush  their  roar 
or  scream  or  growl. 

But  in  humanity  proper  is  the  crowning  demonstra 
tion  of  death  as  the  condition  of  life.  That  verily  is  a 
barren  and  melancholy  history  for  anybody  which  is 
not  one  long  register  of  the  decline  and  extinction  of 
rudimental  tastes  and  appetites,  as  childhood  goes  on  to 
youth  and  manhood  succeeds  to  both,  and  all  leave  so 
far  behind  infancy  for  dear  life  sucking  at  its  mother's 
breast.  How  the  boy  that  longed  for  a  sled,  a  pony,  a 
fishing-rod,  and  a  gun  as  the  joys  and  grandeurs  of 
being,  and  could  not  do,  he  thought,  without  them, 
himself  now  a  grave  and  gray-headed  judge,  preacher, 


LIFE.  181 

manufacturer,  or  trader,  looks  back  on  them  all  as  toys, 
by  his  fancy  for  which  he  is  in  recollection  surprised 
and  amused!  O  mother,  with  your  children  at  your 
knee,  what  care  you  for  the  doll  which  is  such  a  pleas 
ure  and  pastime  or  serious  concern  to  your  little  girl? 
Some  of  us  men  remember  when  we  did  not  pass  by  the 
window  of  a  candy-shop  with  a  very  rapid  foot !  I  bear 
in  mind  a  confectioner's  store,  where  the  stage  stopped 
half-way  on  a  journey  to  Boston  fifty  years  ago,  as  so 
punctually  the  driver  drew  up  his  team  at  the  inn  hard 
by.  The  Italian  who  kept  it,  Dominic  Peduzzi,  must 
long  since  have  had  some  heavenly  recompense  for  his 
fair  dealing  in  earthly  sweets.  How  we  smile  now 
that  we  ever  wanted  to  beat  in  the  race  or  bear  the 
college  honors  off  !  Channing  was  a  famous  wrestler. 
What  at  last  would  he  throw  but  error  and  sin  !  How 
dead  we  all  who  have  grown  old  have  become  to  what 
were  once  the  keenest  delights  and  liveliest  pursuits  ! 
We  could  no  longer  stay  in  our  earliest  dispositions 
than  in  our  frocks  and  long  clothes.  Dead  and  buried, 
how  much  and  how  many,  how  far  away  and  long  ago  ! 
But  not  sad  or  deplorable  is  the  burial  or  death.  It 
is  the  condition  of  resurrection.  Not  a  few  of  our 
notions,  some  of  our  political  opinions  and  religious 
creeds,  have  died,  not  to  leave  a  vacuum  and  void,  but 
to  make  room  for  better  views.  In  vain  you  tell  me  I 
do  not  preach  precisely  the  tenets  of  forty  years  ago. 
Why  should  I?  They  have  perished;  I  have  interred 
them :  some  of  my  books  and  pamphlets  are  perhaps 
their  tombs.  No  doubt  the  loving  and  inspiring  senti 
ments  by  which  they  were  animated  survive ;  but  the 
particular  form  and  construction  have  passed  like  dis- 


182  PRINCIPLES. 

solving  views,  crumbling  frames,  and  withering  leaves. 
When  my  Orthodox  friend  quoted  the  admonition  of 
John  Robinson,  the  Pilgrim  minister,  to  his  Leydeu  flock, 
that  "more  truth  yet  would  break  out  of  God's  Holy 
Word,"  I  replied  there  would  be  also  from  God  more 
word,  to  which  the  rejoinder  was,  "Men  in  these  days 
can  be  illuminated,  but  not  inspired,"  as  if  God  were 
dead,  or  dumb,  or  had  abdicated  like  some  earthly  mon 
arch,  Bonaparte  or  Charles  V.,  and  was  never  going  to 
speak  to  his  children  on  earth  again,  being  in  fact  in 
certain  prophets  and  apostles  embalmed,  and  in  bound 
volumes  embargoed  and  locked  up!  But  we  do  not 
worship  a  great  Deaf-mute  or  defunct  Deity.  We  say 
with  Jesus,  "  He  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the 
living."  We  wait  for  his  bidding,  and  hear  his  com 
forting  voice. 

Affections  for  persons  as  well  as  things  sometimes 
die,  as  die  they  must,  if  they  are  affections  founded 
upon  selfish  or  superficial  considerations.  To  the  fu 
neral  of  love  no  officiating  minister  is  called.  At  its 
grave  no  prayer  is  offered  aloud.  No  sexton's  spade 
can  be  bespoken  or  employed  on  that  inner  ground 
where  the  sepulture  is  made.  Two  spots  in  once  mutu 
ally  throbbing  breasts  are  required  for  one  affection  to 
be  laid  away  to  eternal  rest.  It  is  a  ceremony  private, 
secret,  unspeakably  dreadful  while  it  lasts.  But  how 
can  a  carnal,  shallow,  and  egotistic  regard  last,  however 
eager  it  may  be  and  warm !  It  is  death-struck  in  its 
conception,  and  diseased  in  all  its  duration  ;  not  a  true 
birth,  but  an  abortion  of  the  soul.  Do  not  cry  your 
eyes  out,  or  bleed  your  heart  to  death,  when  one  "who 
has  sought  you  from  interested  and  collateral  aims,  be  it 


LIFE.  183 

man  or  woman,  in  fine  like  a  traitor,  deserts  when  his  am 
bition  or  her  vanity  and  conceit  can  no  longer  be  served. 
Drop  the  acquaintance,  when  your  power  no  longer  is 
permitted  to  go  along  with  your  hearty  good-will.  Good- 
by,  and  God  bless  you,  I  say  to  such  as  by  their  own 
changed  feeling  and  purpose  in  street  or  hall,  church  or 
house,  make  all  the  coolness  and  distance  there  is  betwixt 
them  and  me.  But  this  social  death  is  condition  and 
preparation  for  the  heart's  better  life.  The  regard  even 
for  a  truly  beloved  one  that  never  faltered  may  indeed 
have  a  sort  of  death  from  which  it  rises  and  ascends  to 
be  glorified.  Perhaps  it  was  a  face,  a  voice,  a  manner, 
a  graceful  carriage,  even  a  fine  ribbon  or  well-fitting 
robe,  we  in  our  greener  judgment  loved.  How  can  an 
enduring  affection  be  so  produced?  The  chronology 
of  it  must  be  short.  But  if  our  sentiment  penetrate 
to  a  quality  in  the  dear  one's  nature,  to  a  charm  of 
temper,  and  to  fineness  of  feeling  which  is  ardor  too, 
to  a  divinity  of  aspiration  in  which  we  find  our  poor 
fragment  of  God's  image  in  another  bosom  complete, 
then  our  love  shall  outlive  the  stars.  Perhaps  out  of 
the  sepulchre  of  an  at  first  indiscriminating  propensity 
the  holy  and  indefeasible  passion  rose.  So  wondrous 
are  the  transformations  !  There  is,  as  our  poet  tells  us, 
"  the  initial,  the  demonic,  and  the  celestial  love." 

What  a  man  shall  take  in  exchange  for  his  life, 
through  which  alone  any  thing  can  be  enjoyed  or  felt, 
seems  a  question  too  absurd  to  be  asked.  Who  would 
sell  the  least  part  of  life,  any  bodily  sense,  member,  or 
faculty,  an  eye,  ear,  hand,  or  foot,  for  a  sum  of  money? 
A  man  of  princely  fortune,  afflicted  with  gout  in  his 
feet,  was  inquired  of  what  he  would  take  for  his  splen- 


184  PRINCIPLES. 

did  turnout  of  a  carriage  drawn  by  a  beautiful  span  of 
horses,  and  his  answer  was,  "  The  poorest  pair  of  legs 
in  State  Street."     I  meet  a  man  who  is  dim-eyed,  hard 
of  hearing,  or  limps  as  he  walks.     Would  I  accept  his 
infirmity  with  his  millions  at  the  bank  ?     Yet  if  by  life 
we  mean  the  vital  power  from  this  curiously  connected 
spirit  and  flesh,  how  freely,   every   day,   it   is  parted 
with  and  must  be   given   for   some    object,    grand   or 
mean!      The  sun  is  reeling  off   our   thread   with   his 
ceaseless  motion,   and  the  stars   are  the  fatal  sisters, 
which  the  Greeks  personified,  to  spin  and  cut  this  mor 
tal  yarn.     If  ours  be  twenty  or  seventy  turnings  of  the 
wheel,  what  shall  we  do  with  the  existence  which  with 
all  these  earthly  events  they  weave  ?     Our  poet  pictures 
himself  as  gathering  some  cheap  trifles  or  herbs  out  of 
all  this  fruit  and  treasure  offered  by  the  passing  days, 
and   as   their   troop    retires,  observing   too   late   their 
scorn  on  his  folly.     What  was    our  horror  while    the 
highest  bidder  had  men  and  women  in  our  land !     But 
as  the  abolition  of  the  lottery  by  law  has  not  stopped 
gambling  in  business  or  in  saloons,  in  upper-chambers 
and  underground  dens,  so  the    auction-block  for  flesh 
and   blood    still   stands   despite    the    emancipation    of 
slaves.     It  is  not  long  since  a  young  woman  of  great 
personal  attractions  and  no  fondness  for  low  pleasure 
said  to  me  she  had  thought  of  selling  herself  for  a  sub 
sistence  instead  of  depending  on  charitable  aid.     Not 
only  houses  and  ships  are  sold  in  open  market,  and 
foreign  bills  payable  at  sight  by  the  merchants,   and 
wheat  and  cotton  from  the  West  and  South,   and  oil, 
iron,  silver,  and  gold  from  Lake  Superior,  Pennsylva 
nia  wells,  and  California  mines  ;  but  votes  are  purchased 


LIFE.  185 

by  all  parties  on  principle  and  without  a  blush.  News 
papers  buy  views  not  held  by  the  writers  by  whom  the}r 
are  expressed,  just  as  legal  arguments  are  bought  from 
arguers  who  know  the  unsoundness  of  wrhat  the}^  say 
in  court.  Is  it  more  wrong  for  the  witness  to  render 
false  testimony  than  for  the  lawyer  to  make  what  he 
knows  to  be  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason  in 
his  plea  ?  There  is  a  perjury  of  intellect  as  well  as  of 
fact ;  and  the  counsellor  is  forsworn  who  would  give  to 
any  representation  with  judge  or  jury  a  weight  it  has 
not  in  reason  and  his  own  mind,  — a  thing  which  it  is 
said  neither  Daniel  Webster  nor  Abraham  Lincoln  could 
do,  everybod}"  presently  perceiving,  by  their  faintness 
and  faltering,  when  those  great  advocates  had  no  confi 
dence  in  their  own  case.  A  conviction,  any  more  than  an 
affection,  cannot  be  sold,  only  a  pretension  to  the  faith 
or  love  which  does  not  exist ;  and  hypocrisy  so  weakens 
the  Ir^pocrite  that  in  the  end  it  never  paj's.  It  cannot 
have,  in  private  converse  or  public  discourse,  the  power 
that  comes  from  real  persuasion  alone.  Truly  eloquent 
falsehood  or  insincerity  cannot  be.  Candor  is  the 
thing  to  succeed  !  The  late  famous  editor  of  the  Lon 
don  Times,  Mr.  Delane,  owed,  it  is  said,  his  remarka 
ble  strength  at  his  post  largely  to  one  of  his  rules, 
which  was  never  to  employ  any  contributors  to  main 
tain  positions  in  his  columns  which  they  did  not 
privately  hold  themselves.  The  Times  was  not  con 
sistent,  as  the  times  are  not  from  which  it  took  its 
name.  As  English  policy  varied,  so  the  paper  would 
veer.  It  was  a  paper  kite ;  it  was  a  weathercock. 
It  would  say  with  Camille  Desmoulins,  "It  is  not 
the  vane  that  has  shifted,  but  the  wind !  "  Yet  the 


186  PRINCIPLES. 

particular  writer  for  this  indicator  and  plaything  of 
public  opinion  must  have  his  whole  heart  and  soul, 
nevertheless,  in  the  particular  piece  he  brought ;  and 
that  is  a  matter  of  policy  and  thrift  for  the  ' '  Thun 
derer,"  as  that  British  sheet  is  called,  although  it  looks 
sometimes  rather  like  the  painted  ball  you  amuse  your 
self  to  throw  for  your  trained  terrier  to  catch,  than 
a  bolt  from  the  skies.  But  we  cannot  credit  most  per 
sons  or  organs  with  being  hearty  and  without  inward 
scruple  in  what  they  loudly  and  unscrupulously  say  for 
the  public.  They  have  sold  their  tongues  and  pens 
to  some  political  party,  business  affair,  or  religious  sect. 
Our  soul,  however,  we  cannot  sell ;  only  its  mask. 
Faust  did  not  sell  his  soul  to  the  devil,  as  Goethe  writes, 
nor  Galileo  his  to-  the  Pope :  for  though  the  former 
made  a  bargain,  the  might}7  remorseful  soul  in  him 
could  not  carry  it  out ;  and  though  the  latter  recanted 
in  words  his  discovery  of  the  earth's  revolution,  he 
swore  all  the  time  under  his  breath,  "  Yet  indeed  it  does 
move ! "  All  that  can  be  purchased  of  us  is  to  play 
a  part  in  which  is  no  cordialit}-  or  truth.  This  is  as 
near  to  perdition  as  we  can  come,  and  it  is  near 
enough!  How  ashamed  we  are,  with  a  mortification 
the  mercenary  author  does  not  seem  to  feel,  at  the  reg 
ular  leader  in  type  of  some  daily  sheet  devoted  to  the 
rotten  cause !  ' '  What  is  sold  in  the  shambles  eat, 
asking  no  questions  for  conscience'  sake,"  didst  thou 
sa}7,  O  Paul,  not  reflecting  how  much  would  so  be  sold 
beside  animal  food  ?  But  if  there  are  base  things  there 
are  noble  ones,  too,  in  this  great,  man3T-colored  booth 
of  the  globe,  to  be  purchased  with  life.  Nothing  of  a 
moral  concern  can  be  so  small  but  existence  has  been 


LIFE.  1ST 

economically  laid  down  for  it  on  the  counter  like  a  note 
of  hand  or  bit  of  coin  from  the  purse.  Long  life  is  at  a 
rate  too  dear  if  secured  with  the  least  sacrifice  of  truth 
or  honor,  be  it  the  last  subscription  to  a  refuted  creed, 
or  ancient  pinch  of  incense  the  first  Christians  would 
not  throw  on  Jupiter's  shrine. 

But  can  we  exchange  life  for  release  from  pain? 
Have  we  a  right  to  procure  deliverance  from  personal 
distress  of  mind,  body,  or  estate  by  ending  our  own 
sublunary  stay?  By  no  religion,  philosophy,  or  verdict 
of  the  world's  conscience,  has  this  inquiry  ever  been 
solved.  Even  its  discussion  must  be  prudent  not  to 
hurt  the  public  health.  Yet  by  the  frequenc}'  of  sui 
cide  how  some  consideration  of  it  is  irresistibly  urged  ! 
I  would  propose  no  dogma,  but  ask  consideration  and 
compassion  for  those  who  are  thus  dead.  The  self- 
murderer's  bod}T  was  once  flung  out  of  city-walls  to  be 
buried  shamefully  and  obscurely  at  some  crossing  of 
country-roads  ;  and  by  our  horror  of  his  act,  every  one 
in  imagination  flings  an  additional  stone  at  his  igno 
minious  cairn,  if  we  cannot  forget  where  he  lies ! 
But  the  motives,  no  less  than  the  circumstances,  of  the 
ghastly  deed  differ  so  widely  that  a  uniform  judgment 
on  those  who  deal  the  fatal  blow  is  alike  unjust  and 
absurd.  We  ma}^  admire  in  one  case  what  in  another 
we  denounce.  When  the  Hebrew  Saul  and  the  Roman 
Brutus,  unable  to  survive  defeat,  fall  on  their  own 
swords ;  when  the  Greek  Zeno,  at  a  great  age,  rather 
than  be  a  helpless  cripple,  lets  the  blood  from  his  veins  ; 
when  Judas  the  traitor  hangs  himself  to  "go  to  his 
own  place,"  neither  history  nor  Scripture  condemns,  and 
at  other  tribunals  the  judges  will  not  agree.  When 


188 


PRINCIPLES. 


the  persecuted  Elijah  under  the  juniper-tree  requests 
the  Lord  to  take  away  his  life,  and  the  sore-afflicted 
Job,  though  he  will  not  curse  God,  levels  a  malediction 
on  the  day  of  his  birth,  and  hunts  about  for  his  own 
grave,  their  piety  is  brought  under  no  final  attaint. 
When  the  violated  Lucre tia  stabs  herself,  and  with  the 
blood}r  knife  in  her  hand  summons  and  leads  the  state, 
with  all  its  munitions  and  arms,  to  expel  the  Tarquins, 
she  wins  an  honor  of  which  by  no  Jesuitical  casuistry 
she  can  be  robbed.  What  reader  of  "  Ivanhoe  "  would 
not  have  had  Scott's  Rebecca  leap  from  the  battlements 
of  Front  de  Bceuf 's  castle,  had  the  insolent  and  sensual 
Templar  drawn  nearer  by  an  inch  ;  or  for  whose  tomb, 
now,  would  the  whitest  marble  of  the  quarry  be  so  soon 
sought  as  for  whoever  of  our  own  kith  and  kin  should 
in  like  emergency  take  the  same  step,  were  it  the  for 
lorn  and  only  escape? 

Whether  such  a  step  would  be  justified  on  account 
of  physical  anguish,  nervous  prostration,  and  utter  de 
spair,  we  may  differ  and  doubt.  But  we  must  inquire 
how  and  by  whose  fault  such  a  hopeless  and  dismal 
condition  has  been  produced.  For  not  seldom  murder 
instead  of  suicide  were  the  fitter  term  !  As  induced  elec 
tricity  is  potent  in  its  own  way,  so  we  are  responsible 
for  whatever  actions  proceed  from  the  state  into  which 
we  bring  others' minds.  The  stroke  terminating  earthly 
existence,  which  we  call  voluntary  in  him  by  whom  it  is 
dealt  on  himself,  has  been,  in  fact,  how  often  delivered 
like  a  bullet  at  long  range  from  some  other  hand ! 
Were  the  tables  of  vital  statistics  amended,  we  should 
know  how  many,  who  in  all  the  wars  of  the  world  have 
rushed  into  the  path  of  the  cannon-ball,  were  driven 


LIFE.  189 

forth  by  intolerable  relations  and  from  unhappy  homes. 
Death  is  Misery's  recruiting-sergeant;  and  Rip  Van 
Winkle  expelled  from  the  threshold  is  a  mere  theatrical 
example  of  many  banishments  in  real  life.  As  cruel 
landholders  evict  impoverished  tenants,  many  a  lord 
and  lady  have  exiled  their  mates  heart-broken  to  find 
no  refuge  but  the  grave.  Abandoned  wretches,  indeed, 
that  have  not  secured  that  other  retreat  of  an  appeal  to 
the  One  that  knows  and  cares  !  Religion  is  reference  to 
him ;  and  it  is  a  salvation  on  the  earth,  be  there  or  not 
any  ascension  for  us  into  the  skies.  Let  us  beware  of 
forcing  our  companions  nearer  or  faster  than  they  must 
go  to  the  edge  of  that  precipice  over  which  we  must  all 
disappear.  Make  not  others  weaiy  of  living,  whatever 
3"ou  do  with  your  own  life.  Let  not  our  own  be  such  a 
trial  to  them  in  theirs  that,  in  a  fancy  which  is  not  fore 
boding,  they  shall  behold  us  defunct,  and  actually  cast 
the  horoscope  of  our  own  decease !  Parents  may  use 
so  harshly  with  their  children  the  power  they  possess, 
and  husbands  may  pinch  their  wives  so  closely  in  the 
means  which  they  niggardly  dole  out,  that  in  the  de 
mise  of  these  misers  and  tyrants  will  be  the  only  bounty 
and  tolerance  the}7  so  unintentionally  bestow.  If  the 
man  himself  be  less  coveted,  cared  for,  or  thought 
of  than  his  estate,  and  the  chief  rejoicing  in  him  by 
inmates  of  his  household  is  that  the}'  may  be  his  provi 
dential  survivors  and  heirs,  then  his  being  is  no  bless 
ing,  but  such  a  ban  that  it  would  seem  he,  like  Iscariot  in 
the  Master's  sentence,  had  better  never  have  been  born. 
Life  is  the  largest  of  words  in  the  elevations  and 
profundities  of  meaning  it  spans.  But  in  the  common, 
carnal  sense  what  is  it  worth?  It  is  as  cheap  as  any 


190  PRINCIPLES. 

counter  of  wood  or  bone  with  which  we  play  a  game. 
Only  by  what  we  win  with  it  are  we  really  touched. 
Christians  find  their  example  in  Jesus  the  Christ ;  and 
how  early. and  prematurely,  in  strict  consequence  of  his 
own  behavior,  he  was  cut  off  !  On  scarce  more  than 
one  of  his  thirty  years  is  our  interest  fixed.  How  did 
he  contrive  to  crowd  causes  of  influence  so  many  and 
mighty  on  his  countrymen  and  mankind  into  a  dozen 
passing  months?  Wherefore  the  immortal  pregnancy 
in  his  few  fleeting  words,  brief  sufferings,  and  scattered 
though  gracious  works  ?  Answer  to  such  points  as  we 
ma}',  on  his  own  declaration,  to  his  own  will  or  to  his 
choice  of  his  Father's,  we  must  refer  the  shortness  of 
a  career  whose  term  might  have  been  doubled  on  a  plan 
of  conduct  different  from  his  actual  design.  For  he 
solemnly  avers  to  his  followers  that  he  is  the  author  of 
his  own  death.  He  affirms  that  no  man  taketh  his  life 
away  from  him,  but  he  layeth  it  down  of  himself;  and 
moreover  that  he  had  power,  or  in  a  better  translation 
an  express  commission,  from  God  to  lay  it  down  and 
take  it  again.  So  he  waves  away  the  swords  he  had 
ordered  perhaps  for  his  disciples'  protection,  certainly 
not  for  his  own  defence.  How  did  he  finish  his  life  by 
his  own  act  and  decree  ?  He  used  the  passions  of  the 
people,  the  outcries  of  the  mob  in  Jerusalem,  the  fa 
naticism  of  the  Pharisees,  the  imputed  outrage  from  him 
on  Caesar's  authority,  and  the  mockeries  of  Pilate,  Pe 
ter's  cowardty  denial,  and  Judas's  treacherous  kiss,  as 
well  as  the  official  swords  and  staves  in  the  garden 
and  at  the  cross,  borne  to  Calvary  on  his  own  road-weary 
back,  for  the  weapons  with  which  to  pierce  and  drain 
his  own  breast.  "  He  died  as  the  fool  dieth,"  said  an 


LIFE.  191 

officer  of  the  law  respecting  the  martyr  Lovejoy,  who 
fell  in  Alton,  Illinois,  thirty  years  ago,  defending 
against  the  pro-slavery  rioters  his  own  printing-press. 
No  unbeliever  has  ever  ventured  to  characterize  the 
crucifixion  so !  If  that  were  foolish,  what  was  ever 
wise  ?  Unbelief  has  stood  with  a  holy  fear  before  that 
spectacle,  at  which  it  is  said  the  heavens  were  veiled ; 
and  we  tremble  in  every  heart-string  when  we  ask  what 
this  capitulator  and  destro37er  of  his  own  existence 
gained  by  his  great  surrender.  We  speak  of  men  as 
sailed  by  assassins  or  in  the  battle-field's  dreadful  fray 
as  determining  to  sell  their  life  dear.  Did  the  crucifiers 
know  how  high  the}r  bid?  Who  shall  calculate  the 
spiritual  dividend  from  that  sublime  abnegation  by -our 
Lord  of  mortal  delight?  It  seems  almost  an  extrava 
gance  of  God  that  by  the  door  of  that  single  exit  so 
much  should  be  allowed  to  enter  the  world  !  Did  that 
Son  of  his,  as  he*  chose  to  date  his  own  term  here 
below,  himself  comprehend  the  results  of  new  life  and 
light  and  joy  and  hope  ?  Did  he  understand  that  the 
real  angels  to  visit  and  issue  from  his  tomb  were  not  to 
be  the  ones  clad  in  shining  garments,  but  worthier  prin 
ciples  and  purer  affections  in  the  world  for  all  time 
to  come?  Of  traders  in  their  own  life,  selfish  or  dis 
interested,  do  we  speak?  Here  was  a  merchant  that 
transacted  with  death  on  a  vast  scale  !  He  was  verily 
on  that  exchange  of  which  he  made  a  figure  for  all  men. 
All  your  bonds  and  per  cents  and  funds  are  but  zero  to 
that !  He  was  no  cheated  or  incompetent  dealer  with 
the  last  enemy  of  us  all.  He  died  how  willingly  !  He 
decided  emphatically  to  die.  But  he  permitted  not 
death  to  get  any  advantage  of  him,  not  a  jot.  With 


192  PRINCIPLES. 

that  grisly  phantom  he  insisted  on  fair  and  honest 
terms.  To  that  foe,  which  we  picture  now  with  a 
scythe,  again  with  a  dart  or  hour-glass,  and  anon  as 
a  skeleton  in  a  shadowy  dance,  he  gave  only  his  fading 
fleshly  frame,  over  both  which  and  its  destroyer  the 
undying  soul  in  triumph  arose. 

In  the  gospel  story  he  is  reported  as  saying  to  his 
followers  that  he  was  a  shepherd  laying  down  his  life 
for  the  sheep;  and  "greater  love  hath  no  man  than 
this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends."  And 
Paul,  his  chief  apostle  and  continuer  of  his  work,  adds 
that,  though  scarce  for  a  righteous  man  would  one  die, 
and  yet  for  a  good  man  some  would  even  dare  to  die, 
"  God  had  commended  his  love  to  us  in  that,  while 
we  were  yet  sinners,  Christ  died  for  us."  To  give  our 
life  as  God  does  the  rising  light  for  others,  be  the}rgood 
or  evil,  just  or  unjust,  is  indeed  the  pitch  beyond  which 
no  virtue  or  goodness  can  go.  But  to  give  it  in  labors, 
offerings,  and  privations  every  day  is  a  consecration  as 
real  and  lofty  as  though  we  were  to  drown  in  trying  to 
save  from  the  flood,  or  burn  in  effort  to  deliver  from 
the  suffocating  fire  and  smoke,  or  face  the  devouring 
sword  for  our  fellows,  or  mount  the  gallows,  or  lay  our 
head  on  the  block  for  any  cause  of  freedom  or  truth. 

' '  What  will  you  take  for  it  ?  "  is  the  question  every 
day.  What  will  I  take  for  my  life  ?  It  is  a  cipher  to 
which  value  is  given  only  by  the  numeral  that  stands 
before.  I  will  take  knowledge,  friendship,  integruVy, 
love.  I  will  take  a  good  conscience,  be  satisfied,  and 
call  it  quits.  I  will  starve  rather  than  cheat,  and  die 
sooner  than  default  and  betray  my  bonds.  If  my  life 
be  wretched,  I  will  not  throw  it  up  and  away  like  an 


LIFE.  193 

empty  sponge.  But  I  will  not  sit  on  the  bench,  and 
sentence  those  who  do.  Whether  one's  life  should  be 
relinquished  or  another's  ended  for  any  such  cause, 
science  and  religion  may  some  time  pronounce.  But 
when  a  man  has  forfeited  his  life  by  a  capital  crime,  or 
is  a  monster  unfit  to  live,  let  there  be  in  future  some 
kinder  quietus  than  the  hangman's  cord  and  noose  or 
headsman's  axe.  Let  our  life  be  devotion  to  duty, 
which  is  transcendent  and  everlasting  life. 

But  there  are  occasions  that  cheapen  life,  and  in  sim 
ilar  situations  how  diverse  it  is  !  Crowding  to  the  table 
on  a  canal-boat  or  ocean-steamer,  elbowing  each  other 
to  get  a  nearer  look  at  the  ashes  and  smoking  walls 
after  a  conflagration,  forming  into  procession  in  the 
street  to  honor  a  benefactor  or  celebrate  a  great  event, 
rushing  into  battle  for  their  homes  or  to  conquer  in 
Afghanistan,  thronging  to  the  theatre,  concert-room,  or 
church,  human  creatures  are  a  species  which  it  defies  us 
to  classify  or  span.  How  often  one  may  say  of  him 
self,  What  am  I  but  a  blowing  wind  or  running  stream, 
able  to  decide  not  the  native  volume  of  my  power,  but 
only  something  of  the  direction  in  which  I  shall  blow  or 
run?  Said  the  American  youth,  My  life  is  ignominy  if 
I  keep  it  back  when  union  and  liberty  are  at  stake,  and 
the  black  flag  of  bondage  is  upreared  and  threatens 
to  flaunt  its  inhuman  folds  all  over  the  land.  Into 
the  sea  of  bloody  atonement  I  empty  my  veins.  Hu 
man  nature  is  depraved,  says  the  old  creed.  Nay,  it  is 
more  holy  and  sublime  than  the  sun  and  the  stars, 
when  wives  and  mothers,  loving  maidens  and  sisters 
and  young  daughters,  grudge  not  what  in  manhood  is 
manifold  dear  to  them,  but  gird  on  it  the  armor,  weave 


194  PRINCIPLES. 

the  silken  colors,  put  flowers  into  the  muzzles  of  the 
guns,  and  bid  God-speed  away  from  their  sight  all 
that  is  precious  to  it  on  earth,  when  the  fray  is  for  free 
dom,  and  when  the  nation  is  brought  to  bay  by  those 
same  bloodhounds  that  pursued  the  fugitive  negro. 
But  lo !  in  the  lapse  of  years  a  generation  is  already 
on  the  stage  that  know  nothing  of  the  civil  war. 
From  their  cradle,  ere  it  was  rocked,  the  cloud  charged 
with  such  thunderbolts  had  rolled.  Yet  patriotic  or 
religious  duty  has  not  changed.  Why,  O  preacher, 
emphasize  so  the  fact  that  Jesus  gave  his  life?  Was 
it  more  than  he  and  we  all  ought  ?  Is  it  not  demoraliz 
ing  rather  than  helpful  to  present  the  single  case  as 
such  a  rarity  and  miracle  of  goodness  ?  When  I  love 
any  one,  what  so  easy  as  either  on  any  sudden  occa 
sion  or  all  the  time  to  give  my  life?  We  love  and 
honor  the  Master  for  doing  what  is  but  an  example  and 
encouragement  quite  natural  and  not  prodigious.  Are 
we  saved  by  his  merits  as  so  many  indulgences  for 
past,  though  not,  as  the  Rome  which  Luther  resisted 
construed  them,  for  future  sins?  He  had  no  merits. 
He  but  returned  what  he  had  received.  What  he  had 
under  God  derived  from  humanit}7  he  restored.  As 
blossom  or  fruit  on  the  bough  renders  back  in  fra 
grance  and  food  the  juices  it  has  sucked  from  the  soil, 
so  alone  did  the  Saviour  of  the  world  yield  from  the 
genealogical  tree  on  which  he  grew.  He  was  lifted  by 
successive  throes  of  this  same  old  human  heart  to  the 
mountain-top  of  the  race ;  and  the  fertilizing  streams 
therefrom,  of  which  his  soul  was  the  spring,  as  they 
originated  from,  so  they  are  the  property  of  mankind, 
as  much  as  the  Jordan  and  the  Amazon  belong  to  the 


LIFE.  195 

earth  out  of  whose  distilled  ocean-waters  their  fountains 
were  formed.  However  rich  prophet,  apostle,  and  re 
deemer  may  be,  they  are  but  as  kings  bound  to  spend 
on  the  people  the  treasury  which  the  people  have  filled. 
No  exchequer  of  virtue  in  the  most  highly  gifted  but  is 
due  to  all  the  rest.  We  are  just  only  when  we  feel 
that  of  any  grace  or  talent  with  which  we  may  shine 
not  a  farthing  is  our  own. 

But  if  humanity  be  our  root,  was  not  the  divinity 
that  of  Christ?  Divinity  whence  or  where?  In  out 
ward  space  and  handiwork  of  earth  and  sky,  in  the 
laws  of  nature  we  imagine  broken  or  behold  fulfilled? 
Not  so,  but  in  that  human  soul  which  is  more  than  all 
without.  At  the  breast  of  divinity  in  humanit}^  that 
wondrous  child  was  nursed  to  become  the  same  person, 
whether  we  call  him  Son  of  man  or  Son  of  God.  Be- 
37ond  all  beside,  he  has  indeed  broken  the  general  level 
of  history  with  his  Hebrew  height.  He  is  a  mountain 
unmeasured,  a  tower  not  of  Babel,  whose  top  reaches 
heaven,  and  a  life  we  have  never  been  able  yet  to  tran 
scend.  "  He  represents  nobody  but  himself,"  said  one 
of  a  vainglorious  sage.  But  there  are  representative 
men.  Man}''  have  been  called  Charles,  there  was  but 
one  Charlemagne.  Some  men  take  possession,  like 
spirits,  of  their  neighborhood,  country,  or  kind.  Napo 
leon's  army  was  his  arm.  All  the  Buddhists  grow  out 
of  one  Buddh ;  Mohammed  mohammedizes  the  East. 
New  England  was  once  Webster,  and  South  Carolina 
was  Calhoun.  Every  universal  or  local  celebrity  illus 
trates  the  law.  But,  on  the  same  principle,  what  pos 
session  in  the  best  of  earth's  population  for  some 
thousands  of  years  Jesus  Christ  has  taken  of  the  hu- 


196  PRINCIPLES. 

man  soul,  so  that  they  and  he,  as  far  as  his  influence 
goes,  are  one ! 

Is  it  ill  to  merge  individualities  so  ?  I  answer,  Every 
noble  mind  will  value  most  in  itself  not  its  peculiarity, 
but  the  quality  it  shares ;  for  this  sharing,  as  it  makes 
wealth  in  the  joint-stock  corporation  and  the  business 
firm,  makes  also  society  and  the  commonwealth.  Our 
individual  distinctions  are  no  better  than  savage  orna 
ments  and  war-paint.  I  can  respect  your  proud  social 
hedge  to  keep  others  out  no  more  than  I  do  Stand 
ing  Bear's  necklace  of  bears '  claws.  Our  selfishness, 
our  separation,  our  insulated  and  isolated  condition,  is 
our  sin  and  woe.  If  the  overleaping  by  Jesus  of  the 
bounds  of  his  historic  personality  to  occupy  the  world's 
consciousness  so  widel}T  and  long  be  mythical,  then  he 
is  a  myth.  But  the  myth  is  more  alive  than  ever  his 
flesh  was  ;  and  if  we  try  to  put  him  back  into  the  strait- 
jacket  of  a  thirty  years'  bodily  form,  and  reduce  him  to 
the  dimensions  of  his  manger,  his  cross,  and  his  tomb, 
our  criticism  is  at  fault.  Jesus  was  the  apparition  of 
a  year ;  but  Christ  cannot  be  dated  or  dispossessed. 
Christianity  is  not  a  dogma,  but  a  life  and  growth.  Not 
liberty  of  thought,  but  its  misnomer  and  pale  negation, 
is  it  to  say  that  the  Christian  life  in  the  current  era  is 
an  antiquated  phrase  with  an  obsolete  sense.  For  our 
religion  is  like  the  California  mine  that  opens  richer  the 
more  it  is  wrought.  Valor  is  virtue,  said  the  Roman 
people,  and  still  says  the  Latin  tongue.  But  the 
strength  of  the  sword-arm  in  battle  has  its  limit  in 
quantity  and  an  ever-stricter  measure  of  worth.  The 
new  style  of  morals  as  well  as  of  the  calendar,  which  our 
Master  brought,  puts  meekness  and  lowliness  for  pride 


LIFE.  197 

and  wrath.  We  may  talk  of  its  going  out  of  fashion 
when  it  shall  not  only  have  been  generally  adopted  as 
a  habit,  but  a  better  garb  shall  have  been  devised! 
Meantime,  while  none  are  haughtier,  more  ambitious, 
quicker  to  quarrel,  and  loosen  their  tongue  into  more 
unmeasured  terms  of  opprobrium  on  dissenters  and 
foes,  than  those  by  whom  this  old  gospel  is  assailed, 
we  shall  guess  it  is  a  retrograde  and  no  forward  move 
ment  which  they  propose.  Jesus  "  made  himself  of  no 
reputation."  Does  his  critic  seek  notice?  Is  he  greedy 
of  praise  and  ready  to  bespeak  eulogists  of  his  own 
work?  Verily,  he  is  beneath  his  subject,  and  disap 
pointment  will  be  his  doom.  For  the  trumpet  of  fame 
is  not  an  instrument  that,  like  some  orchestral  band  of 
performers,  can  be  hired  !  Men  ma}^  procure  some  horn 
of  notoriet}7  for  their  ambition  to  blow  for  a  day ;  but, 
as  only  a  real  honor  can  fill  the  ear  or  be  music  to  the 
heart  of  mankind,  there  must  be  a  ground  of  the 
world's  respect  for  that  Jewish  teacher  who  expired, 
yet  by  whom  all  his  censors  will  be  survived,  and  who 
will  be  dethroned  and  displaced  only  and  surely  when 
some  wiser  instructor  and  worthier  soul  shah1  under 
mine  his  humility,  outcompass  his  humanity,  and  over 
top  his  prayer,  beating  all  his  dimensions  of  light  and 
grace.  We  learn  from  him  that  life  is  not  a  tale  that  is 
told,  as  Solomon  might  say,  or  even  a  song  of  degrees, 
as  one  or  another  of  David's  psalms  is  called,  but  an 
element  capable  of  endless  refinement,  and  defying  all 
graduation  of  space  and  time. 

We  are  not  so  many  units.  There  is  a  human  soul, 
which  is  the  source  and  sum  of  individual  men.  We  are 
not  its  creators,  but  derivatives.  It  is  the  only  media- 


198  PRINCIPLES. 

tor  between  God  and  us.  Poets,  prophets,  and  redeem 
ers  are  its  blossoms ;  and  when  we  say  it  has  had  no 
better  flowering  than  in  Christ,  we  mean  no  prodigy, 
but  the  rare  unfolding  of  a  seed  in  us  all.  If  we  speak 
of  our  ideal,  we  do  not  intend  that  an}'  flesh  can  hold 
a  perfect  pattern  of  beauty,  goodness,  or  truth,  any 
more  than  one  building  can  be  the  shape  of  all  architec 
tural  grandeur  and  grace.  The  Greek  beauty  appeared 
in  the  Parthenon,  German  worship  reared  the  cathedral 
at  Cologne,  and  the  traveller  observes  that  the  obliquity 
of  the  Chinese  edifice  repeats  that  of  the  Chinese  face. 
Our  character  reproduces  our  thought ;  but  our  thought 
is  harder  to  trace  to  its  original  springs  than  for  past 
ages  of  exploration  has  been  the  river  Nile.  Surely 
Christianity  is  one  of  its  undried  and  unexhausted  lakes 
of  supply,  and  Egypt  back  of  Palestine,  in  the  dawn  of 
histoty,  is  a  main  confluent  stream. 

Life  cannot  be  defined,  and  only  by  figures  de 
scribed.  It  is  a  boon,  a  trial,  a  tragedy,  a  battle,  a 
stream,  the  wind.  The  man  who,  waking  "  with  con 
scious  awe,"  once  more  "  rejoices  to  be  ;  "  the  sailor-boy 
that  ' '  whistles  to  the  morning-star  ;  "  the  bobolink  that 
flies  and  sings  at  once  ;  the  bee  that  navigates  its  burly 
form  with  a  buzz,  which  seems  a  far-off  echo  of  the 
bull's  murmuring  in  the  field  ;  and  the  cock  on  the  fence 
greeting  the  universe  and  saying  good-day  to  God,  — 
have  a  common  life,  which  in  the  broken-legged  horse 
seems  so  worthless  to  him  and  his  owner  that  he  can 
only  be  shot.  Yet  the  hopeless  lunatic,  beating  the 
bars  of  his  cage,  is  in  a  worse  condition  ;  and  the  com 
mittees  for  insane  asylums  question  if  for  some  of  the 
patients  life  is  a  blessing  that  ought  to  be  prolonged. 


LIFE.  199 

But  the  reformer,  who  suggests  the  abbreviation  of 
any  miser}'  by  anodynes,  though  of  a  man  caught  in 
the  couplings  of  the  cars,  and  begging  to  be  put  out  of 
pain,  is  like  the  scout  of  an  army  who  discharges  his 
piece  and  retreats,  although  he  knows  the  whole  army 
must  come  up  at  last.  Napoleon  cured  a  mania  for 
suicide  among  his  soldiers  in  their  cold  sentry-boxes 
by  exposing  the  dead  bodies ;  and  a  wholesome  shame 
at  this  disgrace  of  death,  as  the  Italians  call  it,  should 
make  us,  even  when  forlorn,  content  and  patient  with 
life,  as  most  of  this  eating  and  drinking  mortal  set 
verily  are.  We  make  too  much  of  our  afflictions  and 
of  all  we  call  evil.  If  it  be  a  bad  world  and  a  bad  race, 
it  is  a  bad  God !  In  trouble  we  must  help  each  other 
out,  like  comrades  amid  the  snows  of  the  mountain- 
wolds.  Leaning  over  the  gunwale  of  the  ship,  from 
whose  seams  the  tropic  sun  boiled  out  the  pitch,  and  by 
whose  side  through  the  blue  water  floated  the  brown 
moss  of  the  middle  latitudes,  which  is  softer  than  lace, 
I  might  in  my  nervous  despair  have  slipped,  but  for  the 
affection  that  held  me  back.  Paul  said,  in  the  strug 
gles  of  his  mind  with  his  lot,  that  he  died  every  day, 
as  we  do  in  sleep  ever}^  night,  and  yet  cannot  tell 
what  slumber  is.  Our  surveying  instruments,  as  it  ap 
proaches,  drop  from  our  hands  unawares,  and  we  can 
not  take  them  up  quickly  enough  to  observe  what  it  is 
to  awake !  The  present  writer  has  died  four  times, 
having  been  overlaid  in  infancy,  drowned  in  youth,  run 
over  by  a  train  of  cars  in  manhood,  and  struck  by  light 
ning  in  age.  But,  for  all  this  experience,  he  knows  no 
better  what  it  is  to  die. 

Nor  do  we  understand  what  time  is.     To  Newton 


200  PRINCIPLES. 

among  his  problems,  or  Webster  musing  on  the  Marsh- 
field  shore,  it  is  one  thing,  and  quite  another  to  Presi 
dent  Washington  when  he  reproves  Hamilton  for  mak 
ing  him  wait  ten  minutes.  I  should  now  be  old  as 
Methuselah,  had  every  day  been  as  long  to  me  as  that 
well-remembered  one  when  the  doctor,  threescore  years 
ago,  wrapped  his  bandanna  handkerchief  around  his 
forceps  to  extract  my  tooth  ;  and  I  should  be  a  sort  of 
ephemeron  had  all  my  life  passed  as  rapidly  as  have 
some  of  its  pleasant  hours,  when  the  clock  seemed 
striking  all  the  time,  so  swift  is  joy! 

While  there  is  any  position  for  us  left  we  shall  live. 
No  thing  can  be  spared,  and  no  person.  Should  an 
atom  crumble,  the  universe  would  fall  into  the  hole ! 
An  effete  moon  or  lost  pleiad  were  a  small  ruin  com 
pared  to  an  annihilated  mind.  Our  vast  hopes  and 
plans  savor  of  immortality.  "I  should  like,"  said 
a  child,  "  to  be  very  rich."  "What  for?"  asked  the 
mother.  "  To  pay  the  national  debt,"  the  little  one  re 
plied.  "  I  want  to  see  this  thing  through,"  said  Josiah 
Quincy,  as  our  civil  conflict  roared  around  him  in  his 
old  age.  The  triumph  of  justice  and  truth  is  in  our 
instinctive  faith ;  but  how  long  must  we  live  for  that? 
Coeur  de  Lion,  in  the  tournament  at  Ashby,  or  at  the 
siege  of  Front  de  Boeuf 's  castle,  we  feel  must  prevail. 
Freedom  knows  that  bondage,  as  they  wrestle  together, 
must  be  under  and  go  down  ;'  and  a  man  with  a  moral 
inspiration  is  persuaded  he  shall  overcome  his  foe. 
Does  the  soul  so  measure  itself  with  death?  Yes,  in 
its  very  dawn !  When  a  king  dies  he  lies  in  state. 
Egypt  gave  him  a  pyramid  for  his  tomb.  When  a  pope 
dies,  art  goes  to  sketch  every  detail  of  the  situation 


LIFE.  201 

of  the  defunct  vicar  of  God.  When  our  martyr-presi 
dent  dies,  his  body,  with  a  procession  of  forty  million 
mourners,  is  borne  through  the  land.  But  God  loves 
a  babe  as  well  as  he  does  any  one  of  them  ;  and  while  we 
pray  to  him  over  the  cold  clay,  does  he  not  pray  to  us, 
entreating  us  to  hope  and  trust  ?  It  is  a  bitter  cup  we 
have  to  drink ;  but  only  a  cup  can  be  bitter,  and  the 
fountain  is  sweet.  "  Whom  God  deceives,"  says  Goethe, 
* '  is  well  deceived  ; "  but  that  life  should  not  be  an  illusion 
concerns  the  honor  of  God  !  "  My  bereavement,"  said 
a  mother  over  her  dead  child,  "  must  be  right,  else  he 
could  not  have  withstood  my  prayers  ! "  Will  he  raise 
false  expectations?  "  Do  you  believe  men  are  immor 
tal  ?  "  Abraham  Lincoln  was  once  asked.  "All  or  none," 
he  replied.  It  is  not  any  peculiarity  of  our  selves,  which 
when  separate  are  always  small,  from  which  our  title 
can  be  derived,  but  the  common  property  of  our  race. 


202  PBINCIPLES. 


VIII. 
BUSINESS. 

WHEN,  apart  or  together,  men  spend  strength  of 
head  or  hand  for  some  definite  result,  they 
work.  If  capital  or  credit  be  added,  overplus  of  gain 
or  accumulation  contemplated,  and  permanence  in  one 
occupation  maintained,  they  do  business.  If  the  ele 
ment  of  risk,  which  is  alwa}'s  involved,  enter  largely, 
the  business  is  speculative .  It  becomes  gambling  if  they 
make  rash  ventures,  snatch  at  chance  prizes,  take  mi- 
fair  advantages,  aim  at  sudden  or  premature  success,  and 
trust  to  luck.  Business  is  so  far  a  lottery  in  modern  life 
as  to  make  it  our  main  concern  to  observe  those  busi 
ness  principles  which  reach  wider  than  any  nationalit}", 
form  of  government,  or  religion.  The  Exchange  runs 
beyond  any  British  drum-beat  around  the  world.  In 
every  city  what  important  characters  are  the  banker  and 
broker,  to  loan  money,  compare  and  dispose  of  property, 
and  watch  that  thermometer  of  the  stock-board,  more 
restless  than  that  of  spirit  or  quicksilver  in  the  glass 
tube !  The  rise  and  fall  in  worth  of  an}7  regular  spe 
cies  of  possession  is  determined  by  causes  so  extended 
and  subtle  as  to  try  the  sagacity  of  the  wisest  mind. 
A  foreseer  of  the  fluctuation  might  make  a  million  dol 
lars  every  week.  The  kings  of  railwa}^,  mills,  or  for 
eign  merchandise  are  limited  monarchs,  and  liable  to 


BUSINESS.  203 

be  deposed.  There  are  more  business  failures  than  po 
litical  overthrows,  defeats  in  court,  or  disappointments 
in  love.  Daniel  Webster,  than  whom  no  man  better 
understood  the  legal  aspects  of  property,  declared  there 
is  no  such  science  as  political  economy  ;  and  an  actuary 
of  one  of  our  greatest  institutions  for  the  care  of  riches, 
himself  an  eminent  lawyer  for  fifty  years,  said  he  did 
not  pretend  to  any  comprehension  of  finance.  How 
many  otherwise  intelligent  men  have  been  confused 
by  discussions  of  the  silver-bill,  resumption  of  specie- 
pa}Tment,  issue  of  greenbacks  as  legal-tender,  till  all 
moral  standards  about  money  are  thrown  down,  and  we 
are  content  to  conclude  that  of  a  national  debt  only  the 
interest  is  secure  in  England,  France,  and  the  United 
States.  The  private  conscience  is  corrupted  by  public 
repudiation,  and  by  the  example  set  by  a  nation  of 
a  partly  counterfeit  coin,  which  the  individual  forger 
only  adulterates  a  few  grains  more.  Pecuniary  right  or 
wrong  is  made  the  accident  of  legislation,  and  a  color  is 
given  by  government  to  every  unrighteous  theor}^  and 
extravagant  scheme.  As  the  hungry  wayfarer  plucks 
another  man's  fruit  rather  than  starve,  a  people  in  peril 
will  insist  on  owning  and  owing  every  thing,  on  being 
debtor  and  creditor  in  one,  and  forcing  all  the  riches  of 
the  community  to  rotate  to  one  spot  at  its  own  will, 
rather  than  give  up  the  ghost !  But  the  medicine  of 
the  constitution  becomes  poison  when  used  as  its  daily 
bread ;  and  if  we  have  warped  our  rules  in  battle,  let 
us  straighten  them  in  peace. 

For  business  has  no  peculiarity  properly  exempting 
it  from  ethical  rules  applicable  to  domestic,  civil,  or  ec 
clesiastical  affairs.  It  is  alike  amenable  to  the  law  of 


204  PRINCIPLES. 

truth,  never  in  its  favor  to  be  repealed.  The  ship-owner 
who  told  the  insurer  not  to  make  out  the  bespoken  policy 
because  his  vessel  had  been  heard  from,  he  having 
learned  she  was  lost  and  knowing  the  policy  would  be 
pressed  upon  him,  as  it  immediately  was,  sacrificed  his 
veracity  to  his  case.  The  importer,  eager  to  sell  dam 
aged  copperas  to  his  customer  who  hoped  the  dealer 
had  not  heard  of  a  rise  in  the  article  abroad,  bit  the 
neighbor  who  was  trying  to  bite  him,  and  both  played 
each  other  false.  The  dealer  who  hides  defects  and 
heightens  the  virtues  in  his  goods,  and  goes  then  to 
church  to  glorify  the  truth  in  a  doxology  or  collect  of 
pra}>er,  worships  mammon  and  makes  an  idol  of  God. 
If  I  chant  or  cheapen  wares  of  my  own  or  another's, 
what  odds  does  it  make  whether  they  be  roads  and 
blocks  of  building  or  sour  fruit  on  an  apple-stand? 
What  signifies  the  size  of  your  operation  when  an  un 
fair  purpose  renders  it  small  just  in  proportion  as  it  is 
large?  You  may  handle  Erie  or  Hudson  or  Pennsyl 
vania  Central  or  New  York  and  Hartford ;  but  if  you 
do  it  in  disguise,  let  me  stand  in  the  shoes  of  the  poor 
woman  who  puts  the  biggest  oranges  on  top,  or  turns 
the  rotten  peach  inside,  or  is  tempted  to  count  eleven 
for  twelve,  rather  than  in  the  seven-leagued  boots  you 
play  the  highwayman  and  freebooter  in,  as  you  travel, 
and  hurry  to  ruin  others,  and  damn  yourself!  A  man 
is  a  swindler  who  offers  a  mortgage  on  real  estate  that 
does  not  exist.  What  shall  we  say  of  the  atrocity  of 
selling  bonds  to  pay  for  building  the  railway  which  is 
made  the  basis,  when  it  is  but  begun  and  runs  to  com 
pletion  only  in  the  scheming  brain,  while  the  stacks  of 
linen  paper  in  handsome  print  are  shuffled  and  dealt  like 


BUSINESS.  205 

packs  of  cards,  and  held  under  lock  and  kev  in  trunks 
and  safety- vaults,  as  if  any  robber  would  touch  them, 
knowing  what  they  are  and  that  no  hand  will  ever  be 
tired  cutting  off  with  scissors  their  promising  coupons  ? 
Treasurers  and  bank-presidents,  who  confound  in  their 
transactions  their  official  capacity  with  their  personal 
wants,  and  trade  on  the  funds  in  their  hands  or  use  the 
credit  of  the  corporation  to  prevent  or  break  their  fall, 
do  in  their  guilty  selves  accuse  of  a  dishonored  and  de 
graded  condition  the  community  in  which  they  can  hold 
up  their  heads.  We  have  come  to  that  state  in  which 
it  is  held  by  some  judges  a  cruelty  and  an  outrage  when 
a  thief  is  imprisoned  or  a  defalcate*  pursued ;  but  not 
from  the  emptied  pockets  do  the  loud  apologies  and 
sentimental  pleas  for  swindling  proceed !  In  the  first 
and  least  departure  from  candor  all  enormity  of  evil 
has  its  germ.  He  who  says  business  is  business  and 
religion  is  religion,  to  advocate  their  divorce,  reallj' 
says  business  is  fraud,  just  as  one  says  all  is  fair  in  poli 
tics  ;  and  he  who  says  there  is  no  friendship  in  trade 
makes  trade  a  worse  hell  than  Calvin  ever  consigned 
heretics  to,  and  blasphemes  God's  decree  that  all  true 
trade  is  friendship,  and  no  bargain  should  be  made  in 
which  both  parties  are  not  better  off.  If  in  certain  cir 
cumstances,  as  is  alleged,  a  man  must  cheat  or  starve, 
then  let  us  have  the  starvation  ;  for  one  instance  of  in 
tegrity  so  sublime  would  outweigh  the  effect  of  millions 
in  the  Indian  famine.  Starvers,  as  once  were  beggars, 
would  become  an  order  in  the  church,  their  martyrdom 
grander  than  that  of  the  stake  or  the  cross.  There  is 
plenty  of  amiability  ;  but  our  heart-strings  are  limp,  re 
laxed  from  rectitude.  They  need  to  be  wound  up  by 


206  PRINCIPLES. 

conscience,  and  toned  and  tuned  to  humane  conduct. 
We  do  not  want  any  confessors  of  the  old  stamp  or  new 
professors  of  poverty,  but  saints  on  'Change  and  suf 
ferers  for  convictions  that  are  better  than  any  creed. 
When  an  English  Lord  forsook  the  liberal  party  and 
called  their  notions  cant,  Earl  Russell  answered,  "  There 
is  no  cant  so  bad  as  the  re-cant  of  patriotism."  It  is 
a  poor  dress  of  righteousness  that  will  not  stand  any 
moral  climate,  but  has  to  be  put  off  and  laid  aside  to 
suit  custom  and  fashion  in  particular  latitudes.  It  is 
not  the  wedding-garment,  opening  heaven  to  the  guest. 
Yet  who  expects  absolute  verity  on  both  sides  in  a 
bargain?  Of  the  cunning  that  gave  them  the  advan 
tage  how  many  will  boast !  They  got  that  furniture  or 
picture  from  the  distressed  owner  or  ignorant  dealer  for 
such  a  pitiful  price,  concealing  their  knowledge  and  joy 
under  cold  indifference,  and  a  mask  of  unwinking  eyes, 
and  pretending  their  purchase  was  naught :  mean  and 
forsworn  hypocrites  that  they  are,  instead  of  the  no 
ble  masters  of  knowledge  for  which  they  would  pass ! 
"  Let  him  find  out  for  himself;  'tis  not  my  business  to 
tell  him  the  age  of  my  horse7  texture  of  my  stuff,  lien 
on  my  land,  or  goodness  of  my  note  of  hand  !  "  So  by 
successive  touches  the  sharper,  who  is  own  cousin  to 
the  trickster,  whets  his  tool.  "  What  do  3*011  pretend 
to  ask  ?  "  is  thought  a  respectful  question,  as  if  }*ou  had 
a  price  you  expected  to  come  down  from,  and  there 
were  a  false  bottom  in  every  contract,  when  God  fixes 
the  principle  of  barter  in  the  fact  that  something  each 
has  is  worth  more  to  the  other,  and  the  only  equity  is 
to  find  out  how  much.  Hucksters'  Row,  to  which  I  was 
sent  as  a  boy,  in  the  town  where  I  lived,  to  fetch  pur- 


BUSINESS.  207 

chases  home,  is  a  long  street  and  runs  through  all  the 
cities  of  the  world  !  Not  only  mendacity,  but  waste  of 
talent  and  time  is  in  all  the  subterfuges  and  demands 
of  this  bantering  and  chaffering  style ;  and  the  great 
Judge  will  call  us  to  account  for  the  loss  of  life  and 
faculty  in  this  deceitful  crying  up  and  crying  down, 
which  puts  a  useless  or  devilish  diligence  for  productive 
industry,  and  in  the  competitions  of  the  great  auction 
which  business  becomes,  stirs  so  much  ill-blood,  and 
substitutes  for  strife  with  guns  and  fists  but  a  new  war 
of  words. 

Religion  is  the  recognition  in  every  negotiation  of 
the  third  party,  the  unseen  witness  and  silent  member 
in  the  firm,  that  makes  his  record  and  prepares  his 
award  of  destiny  after  the  measures  of  earthly  right  and 
wrong.  Said  an  old  Iaw3'er,  "  I  never  knew  one  sharp 
who  was  not  apt  to  be  unfair  ;  taking  the  advantage  in 
that  border-land  of  felony,  where  the  legal  is  not  sel 
dom  the  immoral  way."  But  merchant-princes,  like 
Job,  become  rich  not  by  trickery,  but  by  large  views, 
original  plans,  and  humane  desires  to  unite  in  mutual 
benefit  the  ends  of  the  earth,  while  commonly  but 
a  small  success  is  got  by  shoving  and  keeping  others 
out,  like  that  of  the  California  photographer  who,  hav 
ing  taken  an  impression  of  a  cataract,  cut  down  the 
splendid  trees  beside  it  which  were  part  of  the  picture 
he  would  monopolize  for  his  own  sale.  He  alone  can 
greatly  prosper  who  makes  others  thrive  with  him,  not 
as  a  destroyer  but  creator  of  natural  wealth  by  human 
art,  opening  treasure  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  and 
turning  the  rivers  into  laborers  without  fatigue,  the 
Penobscot  as  a  sawyer,  the  Merrimack  as  a  weaver,  the 


208  PRINCIPLES. 

Nashua  as  a  knitter,  and  Niagara  as  a  spinner  that 
could  move  all  the  wheels  in  the  world  as  a  water- 
power.  "  Tliat  is  not  business,"  said  a  generous  trader, 
when  he  saw  one  running  to  and  fro  betwixt  rival  aspi 
rants  for  a  bit  of  real  estate,  and  spurring  them  to  bid 
and  bet  while  he  refused  to  fix  any  price.  Business  is 
or  may  be  not  only  true,  just,  and  humane,  but  poetic, 
imagination  being  the  eye  to  see  values  of  certain 
kinds.  Let  me  relate  a  case  that  has  occurred  a  hun 
dred  times.  A  man  bought  a  promontory  of  rock  jut 
ting  into  the  sea,  and  cut  in  two  by  a  valley  of  barren 
blowing  sand.  All  the  neighbors  declared  he  would 
come  out  of  his  purchase  only  with  a  broken  skin,  and 
the  experts  from  State  Street  keenest  in  affairs  com 
miserated  his  mistake,  and  feared  he  would  never  be 
whole.  But  while  five  hundred  millions  of  railway 
bonds  were  stopping  payment  in  the  land,  the  sea- 
washed  crags  stood,  and  drew  those  who  loved  Nature 
for  something  more  than  the  grass  and  potatoes  she 
could  bring  forth,  even  for  the  eternal  magnificence  of 
her  ideal  charms.  There  is  a  market  for  beauty,  and 
sublimity  has  its  worth  and  can  be  quoted,  while  be 
yond  all  price,  though  so  many  an  acute  operator 
despise  the  article  and  cannot  for  his  life  tell  what  it 
means.  But  the  old  billows  roll  on  their  sounding  way, 
and  the  shores  abide,  and  the  planted  woods  grow,  as 
one  balloon  after  another  of  speculation  bursts  and 
throws  the  aeronaut  limping  to  the  ground,  while  the 
buyer  of  brambles  and  stones  ceases  to  be  considered 
as  a  fool,  is  credited  with  having  a  long  head  though 
with  no  skill,  but  a  simple  love  of  scenery ;  and  the 
character  of  fancy  property  shifts  from  his  beaches  and 


BUSINESS.  209 

rocks  to  the  factories  and  iron  roads.  Even  a  man's 
theology  may  rise  with  his  house-lots.  What  in  his 
thoughts  had  been  branded  as  moonshine  may  become 
sober  reality,  as  Shakspeare  tells  us  the  moonlight 
sleeps  upon  a  bank,  and  the  useful  planet  we  so  pro 
fanely  use  as  a  type  of  hollowness  lays  her  steady 
lustre  on  the  solid  ground.  Heresy  is  condoned  by 
business  sagacity. 

Business  is  religion  in  this,  that  its  enterprises,  to 
stand  and  last,  must  with  a  prudent  judgment  conform 
to  all  the  laws  of  the  mind  and  the  world.  Whence  the 
crash  of  ruin  and  the  long  prostration  from  which  it 
takes  so  many  years  to  get  up  ?  Violated  conditions  of 
progress  and  of  permanent  possession  show  the  cause. 
With  over- sanguine  hope  the  present  borrows  of  the 
future  and  then  has  to  wait,  unable  to  pay  the  debt. 
In  enforced  inactivity  it  lies  long  in  jail !  Anticipating 
freight  and  passengers  that  do  not  exist  and  will  not 
for  a  score  of  years  be  raised  and  born,  our  stations 
rot  and  our  rails  rust  in  the  rain.  Manufactured 
cloths,  which  nobody  is  begotten  to  wear,  lie  piled  up  on 
the  shelf  till  the  hum  of  the  spindles  is  checked  by  their 
weight.  The  responsibility  is  not  on  the  waste  of  war 
alone,  nor  on  wrong  legislation,  nor  on  the  hard  times 
with  whose  name  we  cover  our  sins,  but  on  avaricious 
property,  on  the  love  of  money  transgressing  the  law  of 
real  increase,  and  ending  in  bubbles  of  nominal  value 
that  like  whirlwinds  or  waterspouts  break  in  ruin. 
Capital,  depraved  by  greed,  like  ^Esop's  dog,  grasps 
at  the  shadow  and  drops  the  substance  in  the  stream, 
while  signs  of  value  fah1  below  their  mark  as  represent 
ing  power  to  purchase  actual  good,  like  half-emptied 

14 


210  PRINCIPLES. 

vessels,  or  ponds  that  dry  up  in  the  summer  heat ;  and 
labor  looks  on  jealous  of  the  wit  that,  like  a  black  art, 
multiplies  the  signs  in  the  hands  of  their  possessors, 
labor's  dollar  being  still  heavy  and  hard  to  lift,  till 
strikes  like  thunderbolts  assail  the  showy  fabric  of  pros 
perity,  and  the  spectre  of  communism  throws  petroleum 
in  Paris  and  in  Pittsburg  blocks  the  trains.  Nor  is  the 
organ  of  destructiveness  in  the  human  brain  stirred  by 
an}T  intent  of  capital  to  oppress  labor,  so  much  as  by 
the  rupture  of  S3*mpathy  and  separation  of  the  capitalist 
and  laborer  into  separate  classes,  so  that,  under  all  our 
fine  republican  and  democratic  names,  society  is  cut  in 
twain,  and  the  community  ceases  to  exist.  The  emplo3~er 
knows  not  how  his  servant  lives,  or  what  he  thinks  ; 
Christianity  becomes  a  form  in  the  cathedral,  and  for 
human  fellowship  we  have  ministries  for  the  poor. 

Universal  suffrage,  unless  enlightened,  fails  to  cure 
the  disease.  No  man  is  born  free  ;  and  no  two,  though 
twin,  are  equal  or  alike.  What  a  trail  of  heritage  and 
bond  of  necessity  are  peculiar  to  every  child  !  ' '  Glit 
tering  generalities"  be  the}*,  or  "blazing  ubiquities," 
that  we  launched  as  lightnings  at  political  tyranny  a 
century  ago,  with  a  just  claim  that  ah1  should  stand 
equal  before  the  law,  yet  the  whole  truth  of  nature 
cannot  be  contained  in  French  maxims  or  a  Jeffersonian 
phrase.  By  divine  decree  one  man  will  occupy  more 
room  than  another  with  his  body  or  soul.  The  kings 
that  know  and  can,  and  the  nobles  best  to  rule,  are  not 
titular,  with  thrones  for  seats  and  crowns  for  hats,  any 
more  than  the  queen-bee  is  such  in  a  hive  or  the  bell 
wether  of  the  flock.  He  that  has  the  eloquence  sways 
the  audience,  and  he  that  is  born  to  command,  Cortes 


BUSINESS.  211 

or  Cromwell,  leads  the  troop.  In  the  senate  of  gods 
is  Jupiter,  and  Webster  in  that  of  men.  We  must 
have  leading,  if  there  be  any  ducal  power,  to  attend  on 
the  ballot ;  and  the  millennium  will  not  come  simply 
because  women  vote,  as  they  ought,  like  men.  Is  the 
clown  injured  and  downtrod  because  the  inventor  has 
his  patent  and  the  author  his  copyright  ?  Does  not  the 
honor  of  genius  and  stimulus  to  discovery  bless  both 
low  and  high?  O  friend,  insisting  thou  art  good  as 
anybody,  blazon  thy  duties  and  reserve  thy  rights  if 
thou  wilt  not  be  bad  !  Jesus  and  Judas  merit  not  the 
same  weight  in  Church  or  State.  The  insurgent  motto 
is  not  true,  that  he  is  born  well  who  is  born  at  all ;  for, 
says  the  Master,  the  betrayer  had  better  not  have  been 
born.  Until  we  learn  how  much  we  have  to  do  with 
right  or  wrong  birth,  and  that  God  no  more  make's  a 
human  creature  than  a  plant  outright,  using  the  dust  as 
his  dough,  this  dreadful  span  of  beauty  with  deformity 
for  the  world's  team  will  last,  and  degenerate  offspring 
through  the  whole  race  of  idiots  ranging  into  mon 
sters  will  come  unwelcome  on  the  earth.  Apply  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  handsomety  as  you  will  to  the 
beast,  horse,  cow,  dog,  and  hen  for  a  better  breed,  yet  it 
will  not  signif}^  to  save  us  from  our  self-created  hells  of 
jails  and  asylums  for  the  ingrained  wicked  and  insane. 
I  believe  in  God,  but  that  he  puts  men  into  their  own  and 
each  other's  hands.  After  all  our  clamor  for  indepen 
dence,  with  its- echo  of  guns  and  crackers  to  split  our 
ears  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  how  would  it  do  to  adopt  the 
engraving  on  the  old  German  shield,  and  serve  a  lit 
tle,  instead  of  being  so  free?  For  what  but  to  be  forty 
millions  of  servants  have  we  liberated  four  millions  of 


212  PRINCIPLES. 

slaves  ?  All  men  are  born  to  further  one  another  and 
to  deny  themselves  for  that  grander  self  of  a  living 
truth  and  love  which  they  should  worship,  and  in 
which  they  are  one. 

This  is  business,  the  only  sort  in  which  we  should  be 
engaged ;  and  this  alone  is  the  joy  which  no  fine  for 
tune  or  fair  site  in  nature  can  confer,  though  all  the 
waves  clap  their  hands  to  3'ou,  and  the  trees  wave  their 
branches  and  rustle  their  leaves.  If  you  have  no  poise 
or  projection  of  power,  time  shall  be  the  old  man  of  the 
mountain  on  your  neck.  I  will  not  go  to  heaven  unless 
there  be  some  errands  for  me  there  !  Let  whoso  under 
takes  in  this  land  to  abolish  mountain  and  vale  in  favor 
of  the  level  and  the  swamp  beware  !  Voters  are  led ; 
and  it  is  well  that  among  so-called  independent  char 
acters  nine  out  of  ten  lack-wits  should  be  in  leading- 
strings.  Find  m}~  conductor,  and  I  will  follow.  Apollo, 
not  Marsyas,  shall  teach  me  poetry  and  song ;  Milton 
shall  dictate  my  politics,  not  Salmasius  or  Charles  I.  ; 
and  the  wise  man  or  the  village-Washington  for  any 
measure  of  improvement  shall  put  a  town-meeting  to 
shame.  In  that  same  primary  assembly,  which  is  our 
boast,  our  tyranny  lies.  The  highway-robber  long  ago 
dropped  visor  and  holster ;  but  what  a  smooth  citizen  or 
blustering  demagogue,  in  this  ever-shifting  masquerade 
which  we  call  life,  he  has  become  !  We  are  committed  to 
the  ballot  in  every  hand,  like  a  fleet  to  the  gale.  But  as 
many  a  cannon's  weight  is  rolled  across  the  deck  of  the 
careening  frigate  to  the  other  side,  so  our  ship  of  State 
must  be  kept  from  foundering  through  our  counter 
balance  of  indiscriminate  civil  privilege  by  conserva 
tive  tons  of  knowledge,  religious  principle,  culture  in 


BUSINESS.  213 

art,  and  mutual  respect.  "  You  should  have  been  born 
in  St.  Petersburg  a  half-century  ago,"  it  was  said  to  one 
who  doubted  the  genius  of  the  populace  for  finance. 
But  we  are  not  driven  to  choose  betwixt  despots  and 
the  rabble  rout.  If  it  is  the  intelligence,  not  the  igno 
rance  we  represent,  wisdom  will  be  at  the  helm ;  and 
business  is  one  half  of  legislation  and  of  the  judicial 
court.  Let  us  follow  the  light  of  reason  more  than  of 
the  ecclesiastical  indoctrination  which  scatters  that  light 
into  party-colors,  even  as  the  stained  windows  of  the 
temple,  with  the  blue,  red,  and  green  they  so  impiously 
strain  the  sun  into,  render  it  impossible  for  dim  eyes  to 
read  the  Prayer-book  or  the  Bible,  turn  the  stone  shrine 
into  a  sepulchre,  and  make  corpses  of  the  men  and 
women,  all  from  shutting  out  the  natural  day.  A  holy 
worshipper  in  his  own  house  said,  "  When  the  sun 
reaches  the  spire  }-onder  across  the  street,  it  throws  a 
shadow  into  my  room  !  "  Was  darkness  on  the  inside  of 
a  building  intended  as  the  final  issue  when  the  first  altar 
was  reared?  Better  go  back  to  the  time  of  outward 
offering,  to  Abel's  sacrifice  or  Cain's  on  the  broad  earth 
and  under  the  open  sky,  than  paint  the  glass  of  the 
sanctuary,  or  for  spiritualist  revelations  lower  the  gas 
and  shut  the  blinds.  Ghosts  in  the  churchyard  may 
love  the  twilight,  but  so  does  not  God.  To  him  is  no 
darkness ;  and  Adam  fled  into  the  thicket  when  he 
would  not  feel  his  presence  or  own  his  voice  because 
he  had  disobeyed  his  word. 

But  business  is  religious,  because  religion  is  justice 
betwixt  men  as  well  as  prayer  to  God  ;  and  justice  be 
yond  arithmetical  calculation  includes  a  sympathetic 
imagination  in  either  party  to  a  contract,  to  take  the 


214  PRINCIPLES. 

other's  point  of  view,  and  so  obey  that  Golden  Rule 
which  in  our  Gold  Room  we  daily  break,  till  the  fine 
gold  loses  its  value,  and  becomes  dim.  Every  metal 
whose  handling  is  immoral  becomes  worthless  in  itself. 
There  can  be  no  equity  of  procedure  or  of  intent  till 
the  dealer  look  out  of  the  customer's  eyes  as  well  as  his 
own ;  and  no  worship  at  Mount  Gerizim  or  at  Jerusa 
lem  is  loftier  than  such  a  look.  Was  it  higher  in  Jesus 
to  kneel  the  whole  night  than  to  gaze  at  himself  out  of 
his  crucifiers'  eyes,  so  as  to  understand  their  ignorance, 
and  pray  for  pardon  to  their  sin  ?  It  is  a  large  view 
when  we  can  behold  ourselves  as  we  are  beheld  in  our 
doings  by  all  whom  we  meet ;  and  poverty,  which  is 
intrinsically  no  better  than  riches,  is  not  the  necessary 
result  of  that  survey.  Extent  of  vision  is  a  main  con 
dition  commonly  of  being  rich ;  and  by  selfish  stickling 
for  little  advantages  over  our  neighbor,  how  small  our 
horizon  becomes  !  There  were  rich  men  for  James  the 
Apostle  to  rail  at.  But  the  opulent  are  not  always  sin 
ners,  nor  the  destitute  alwa}7s  saints.  Love  enlarges 
power,  and  we  are  debilitated  and  impoverished  by 
hate.  But  how  meagre  does  absorption  in  gain,  al 
beit  immense,  make  the  man !  When  we  see  him,  a 
silver  bar  seems  to  run  for  a  stricture  across  his  fore 
head  and  to  press  on  his  eyes,  whose  lids  contract  to  let 
out  only  that  twinkle  of  light  which  suits  his  sordid 
aim.  When,  in  his  sickness,  incompetenc}7,  or  age,  the 
tide  of  affairs  ebbs  away,  how  helpless  and  wretched  he 
is  left !  What  miserable  millionnaires,  not  knowing  what 
to  do  with  themselves,  we  have  seen  !  I  remember  one, 
with  his  jaundiced  face  and  thin  gray  hair  at  fourscore 
braided  over  his  head,  who  complained,  when  he  could 


BUSINESS.  215 

no  longer  do  business,  that  life  had  lost  its  savor  and 
become  stale.  He  was  a  brief  appendix  to  his  vast 
accumulation.  He  had  cultivated  no  love  for  nature  or 
art,  he  cared  not  for  society,  and  there  was  in  him  no 
relish  for  books.  Communion  with  matter  had  driven 
spirit  ont.  Yet  mammon  became  a  "  dull  god  "  to  wor 
ship  when  the  pile  no  longer  grew.  His  mind,  instead 
of  being  full  like  his  purse,  by  dint  of  long  pumping 
out  of  that  vital  air,  which  devotion  or  any  generous 
affection  is,  could  only  suggest  the  exhausted  receiver, 
which  we  cannot  contemplate  in  the  curious  experiment 
without  a  sort  of  pain.  Mental  and  moral  vacuum,  a 
soul  like  the  old  chaotic  earth  without  form  and  void, 
what  an  upshot  of  a  life,  and  what  an  account-book,  if 
there  be  any  last  assizes,  to  carry  to  the  bar ! 

Business  denotes  our  activity  in  every  form.  Every 
mechanical,  professional,  official,  or  literary  person  is 
busy,  —  artist  and  engineer,  ruler  and  subject,  alike. 
What  is  money  but  means,  sustenance  in  peace  or  sm 
ews  of  war,  the  corner-stone  without  which  the  pillars 
of  the  commonwealth  tremble  and  there  is  nothing  to 
uphold,  and  synagogue  and  synod  must  come  to  the 
ground  ?  Wealth,  like  fire,  is  a  good  servant,  but  a  bad 
master ;  and  it  takes  a  hero  to  collar  and  force  it  to 
its  use.  It  is  written  of  Morton,  the  great  Indiana 
war-governor,  that  before  he  was  a  United  States  Sen 
ator,  when  a  hostile  legislature  adjourned  without  ap 
propriating  money  with  which  to  carry  on  the  State 
government,  he  borrowed  two  millions  of  dollars  on  his 
personal  assurance,  kept  the  civil  machinery  in  motion, 
and  paid  promptly  the  interest  of  the  debt ;  and  when 
the  thunder-clouds  from  North  and  South  met,  he  sent 


216  PRINCIPLES. 

two  hundred  thousand  soldiers  into  the  field.  Money 
as  the  guard  of  law,  the  maul  against  secession,  and 
sword  of  execution  on  slavery,  as  well  as  new  under 
pinning  and  prop  of  liberty,  is  no  root  of  evil  when  for 
such  ends  it  is  loved  and  used.  The  draft  on  its  treas 
ury  which  such  a  patriot  and  philanthropist  makes  shall 
be  honored  at  a  bank  that  never  breaks.  No  spectacle 
is  more  noble  than  when  a  State  for  righteousness  fol 
lows  a  man,  as  Indiana  did  Morton,  and  Massachusetts 
did  Andrew,  and  California  did  King.  Then  the  soul 
sits  sceptred,  and  we  learn  the  meaning  of  the  text, 
that  "  the  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth,"  which  is  but  a 
causeway  to  heaven. 

For  business,  in  the  sense  of  what  one  can  be  in  or 
out  of,  is  incidental.  It  is  irreligious  if  made  the  end 
or  even  the  means  of  wealth  instead  of  the  test  of  worth, 
and  but  one  in  our  chest  of  character-building  tools. 
The  play  is  for  the  soul ;  and  all  the  outward  plans  and 
exchangeable  results  are  but  like  the  figures  on  the 
board  betwixt  the  youth  and  Satan,  in  the  allegorical 
game  of  chess.  Saith  the  Spirit,  no  man  has  his  price, 
and  no  woman  can  be  bought  or  sold.  No  virtue  is  in 
pawn.  We  sometimes  see  a  face  in  whose  expression 
is  disdain  of  fortune,  like  an  eagle's  scorn  of  the 
ground,  and  which  no  bribe  would  dare  approach.  It 
is  not  culture,  but  nature.  When  the  poor  sailor  was 
offered  a  reward  for  saving  a  man  from  drowning  at  the 
risk  of  his  own  life,  what  moved  him  to  say  that  a 
Marblehead  boy  will  not  do  such  a  thing  for  money, 
but  the  feeling  that  any  pay,  though  it  were  paradise, 
taints  the  nobility  of  our  deed  ?  Between  the  venal  and 
the  unpurchasable  runs  the  line  and  yawns  the  unpass- 


BUSINESS.  217 

able  gulf.  No  assumption  and  make  the  selfish  and 
self-sacrificing  to  be  peers  without  overthrowing  the 
judgment-seat.  The  doctrine  of  animal  descent  includes, 
among  many  lessons,  this,  that  one  man  no  more  than 
one  beast  matches  another,  and  that  human  neighbors 
or  fellow-creatures  and  fellow-citizens  may  be  no  more 
alike  than  a  sloth  is  to  a  beaver,  a  caterpillar  to  a  silk 
worm,  or  a  potato-bug  to  a  bee.  Jesus  classifies,  and 
predicts  classification  for  ever,  into  goats  and  sheep, 
vipers  and  doves.  The  human  form  or  animal  life  can, 
no  more  than  the  vegetable,  identif}7  the  individuals  by 
whom  it  is  worn,  or  prove  them  more  than  plants  to  be 
excellent  alike.  The  deadly  nightshade,  apple-peru,  or 
poisonous  ivy  is  not  as  good  and  fair  as  the  lily,  balm 
of  Gilead,  and  rose.  We  may  all  have  equal  right,  but 
not  right  to  equal  room.  The  career  is  open  to  talent, 
said  Napoleon,  and  the  chief  talent  is  virtue.  Busi 
ness  is  its  principal  sphere,  in  which,  however,  all  in- 
iquit}r  watches  its  chance. 

To  have  some  business  in  the  world,  and  to  mind 
one's  own,  is  our  dignit}'  and  only  reason  for  being. 
With  what  grace  that  Englishwoman  who  recited  Shak- 
speare  in  our  ears,  being  called  out  at  the  end  of  her 
readings,  said,  "I  cannot  make  a  speech,  it  is  not  in 
my  book."  To  find  and  follow  where  the  finger  of  na 
ture  points  is  the  sum  of  education ;  and  into  what 
more  than  orchestral  harmony,  under  that  conductor, 
all  earthty  occupations  would  come !  Nature  is  the 
grace  of  God  in  the  world  and  the  soul,  and  naught  is 
unnatural  but  folly  and  sin. 

But  affairs  are  still  what  a  turbulent  sea  !  One  man 
holds  the  key  to  release  his  brother's  estate ;  and, 


218  PRINCIPLES. 

though  it  has  cost  him  but  little,  he  will  sell  it  how 
dear !  Another  man  no  treasure  can  tempt  to  a  cruel 
use  of  strength,  or  to  alter  one  word  he  has  said. 
' '  You  lose  five  hundred  dollars  by  your  dainty  and 
delicate  notions  of  propriety,"  one  was  told.  u  I  should 
have  lost  more  than  that  by  being  less  honorable  to  my 
rival,"  he  replied.  To  save  bodily  life,  men  on  a  wreck 
have  offered  all  they  possessed  ;  and  to  save  themselves, 
men  have  left  wife  or  child  to  perish  as  they  swam  from 
the  sinking  ship.  What  means  our  contempt  for  such 
abandonment  of  others  and  preservation  of  self,  but 
consciousness  of  a  principle  which  no  flood  can  drown, 
which,  out  of  every  deserted  corse  going  as  lead  to  the 
bottom  or  afloat  helpless  on  the  wave,  will  get  safe  to 
shore,  and  call  the  recreant  to  account !  Immortality 
is  a  moral  necessity.  Eternity  is  not  too  long  for  illus 
tration  of  the  truth  that  our  business  in  time  is  self- 
denial  for  each  other's  sake. 

The  fact  that  our  business  sins  are  so  in  excess  of  all 
other  transgressions  shows  that  acquisitiveness  is  the 
propensity  most  overstrained.  Everybody  speculates. 
Men  on  fixed  salaries,  clerks  in  banks  and  mills,  are 
tempted  by  the  ventures  into  which  their  employers 
plunge,  to  use  for  their  own  ventures"  their  employers' 
means.  These  little  figures  in  the  columns  can  so 
easily  be  counted  up  wrong,  and  these  notes  and  papers 
that  represent  value  are  so  light  and  readily  shifted, 
and  houses  and  lands,  ships  and  goods,  factories  and 
roads,  in  this  printed  form,  can  be  so  quickly  put  in 
one's  pocket  and  carried  so  far  away,  and  the  time 
may  be  so  long  before  the  exchange  or  misreckoning  is 
found  out,  that  by  facile  opportunity  all  but  the  abso- 


BUSINESS.  219 

lutel}T  upright  are  seduced  to  take  a  hand  in  the  vast 
stake  played  for  on  the  table  of  chance,  as  if  gambling 
were  not  outlawed,  so  that  protection  of  property  is  the 
unsolved  question  of  the  day.  Who  shall  guard  its 
guards?  An  immense  evil  in  all  worldly  values,  under 
the  spur  of  this  eager  pursuit,  is  their  uncertain  rate. 
It  would  seem  that  a  quite  honest  dollar  cannot  be 
found ;  and  those  who  tamper  with  the  currency,  and 
would  make  its  volume  like  an}7  book  with  as  many 
pages  as  are  wanted  from  the  printing-press,  plead  the 
fluctuation  of  gold ;  metal  or  parchment,  greenback  or 
consol,  is  but  a  representative  whose  reality  does  not 
exist !  Pyrrhonism  has  left  the  schools  and  gone  upon 
'Change.  Hence  the  melancholy  waste  of  faculty  on 
the  universal  and  insoluble  problem  of  the  worth  of 
things.  Every  species  of  stock  rises  and  sinks.  There 
is  no  bottom  and  no  top.  The  bulls  push  and  the 
bears  pull !  What  an  amount  of  strength,  that  might 
be  employed  in  production,  is  wasted  in  calculation  of 
sums  that  have  continually  to  be  done  over  again,  and 
never  come  out  altogether  right!  Arithmetical  ac 
counts,  books  of  double  entry  and  geometric  surveys, 
before  such  exhausting  tasks,  are  vain  to  help ;  and 
what  thousands  are  demoralized  in  this  laborious  idle 
ness,  and  turned  into  busy  drones !  No  wonder  that 
many,  grinding  thus  like  millstones  without  a  grist, 
become  crazed,  and  some  Napoleon  of  commerce,  for 
whom  his  millions  have  proved  too  much,  from  the  long 
puzzle  of  the  market'  goes  with  a  turned  head  to  count 
imaginary  money  in  a  mad-house.  Man,  as  merchant 
only,  "  walketh  in  a  vain  show."  My  friend,  in  the 
press  of  affairs  heaping  up  wealth  which  appears 


220  PRINCIPLES. 

only  in  shares  on  the  corporations'  books,  calls  a  bar 
ren  cliff  by  the  sea  fancy  property.  But  his  is  fanciful 
and  the  cliff  real :  for  there  is  somewhat  permanent  and 
unchangeable  in  the  beauty  where  the  soul  takes  its 
daily  bath,  —  in  the  horizon  whose  exquisite  line  of  the 
meeting  land  and  sea  and  wood-girdled  hill  does  not 
waver ;  in  the  sky  from  whose  inverted  cup,  as  a  horn 
of  plenty  to  heart  and  imagination,  daily  blessings  come  ; 
and  even  in  the  charming  phenomenon  of  the  tide,  so 
punctual  although  never  at  rest ;  and  in  the  perpetual 
and  pervading  gloiy ,  out  of  which  life  even  as  a  shadow 
is  cast,  —  while  the  possessions  .on  which  you  can  real 
ize  are  more  unsubstantial  and  cloudy  than  any  vapor 
that  floats  overhead  through  the  air. 

Abject  poverty  is  a'  curse  and  a  provocation  to  crime. 
But  unbounded  personal  appropriation  of  the  signs 
and  symbols  of  wealth  is  the  ver}*  lunacy  of  conceit. 
Riches  are  good  for  what  we  can  do  with  them  ;  but 
if  we  do  nothing  but  invest  and  reinvest,  using  them 
with  no  generous  design  for  others'  benefit,  but  only  as 
so  much  seed-corn  and  so  many  nest-eggs  to  produce 
more,  we  impoverish  our  fellows  and  might  as  well  be 
poor  ourselves.  The  miser  is  a  pauper,  his  counting- 
room  a  poor-house  ;  and  the  worst  sort  of  beggary  will 
be  the  end  and  upshot  of  his  destitution  of  love.  None 
at  last  need  charily  so  much  as  do  they  by  whom  it  has 
never  been  shown !  This  keen  scent  for  gain  leaves 
little  conscience.  The  sharp  man  will  be  a  sharper, 
and  how  near  to  being  dishonest  is  he  who  is  close  •! 
Road  and  bank  presidents,  with  enterprises  outside 
their  office,  are  tempted  to  divert  corporate  or  public 
funds,  in  their  hands  or  at  their  command,  to  their  pri- 


BUSINESS.  221 

vate  risks.  The  accommodator  and  the  accommodated, 
the  lender  and  the  borrower,  are  one  man  !  It  is  a  dan 
gerous  position  ;  and  thoughtful  business  men  are  begin 
ning  to  ask  if  directors  are  not  biassed,  and  whether 
a  president  is  more  safe  for  being  a  Croesus  of  large 
and  manifold  concerns. 

Moderation  is  the  lesson  taught  from  all  this  en 
forced  commercial  stagnation.  Intemperate  undertak 
ings  strengthen  no  more  than  liquors  that  make  drunk. 
How  hard  in  this  country  we  have  worked  to  get  poor ! 
Business-mania  is  that  sort  of  fever  on  whose  heat 
debility  attends ;  and  we  should  have  been  richer  to 
day  had  we  thought  less  of  riches.  Jehu,  driving  the 
chariot,  is  upset.  How  slowly  and  leisurely  the  car  off 
the  track  is  pried  back !  Ten  years  it  takes  for  our 
business- train  to  get  in  motion  again.  The  correction 
and  cure  for  the  business  man  is  to  have  something  be 
side  his  affairs  to  take  up  his  thought.  When  one  has 
so  much  to  do  that  he  cannot  attend  to  important  mat 
ters  or  fulfil  friendly  relations  outside  the  bargains  he 
shoves  and  is  pushed  into  a  corner  and  impounded  by, 
he  is  not  doing  his  business  well,  and  we  need  not  be 
surprised  if  he  fail.  Only  by  a  decent  culture  of  all 
the  faculties  can  the  mind's  balance  be  preserved  ;  and 
b}7  its  inward  poise  will  outward  footing  be  kept.  One 
may  as  easily  lop  a  bodily  member  and  not  go  one 
sided  or  lame,  as  starve  his  intellect  and  depopulate  his 
imagination,  yet  have  good  judgment  remain  ;  and  any 
warping  or  neglect  of  the  moral  sense  will  but  aggra 
vate  the  mischief.  Other  things  being  equal,  we  may 
trust  the  banker  who  loves  the  fine  art  that  is  above  his 
finance,  cherishes  some  exquisite  taste  and  follows 


222  PRINCIPLES. 

some  branch  of  pure  knowledge,  rather  than  the  one 
who,  having  only  room  for  scales  in  his  brain,  will 
surely  also  have  scales  on  his  eyes.  To  prevent  the 
creeping  of  cataract  over  the  spiritual  vision,  we  must 
not  look  out  for  worldly  advantage  till  our  gaze  be 
comes  a  dazing  stare,  but  practise  ourselves  to  behold 
truth  in  all  her  forms.  To  our  vocation  let  us  add  an 
avocation  if  we  would  keep  sane. 

Some  great  affection  for  God  or  his  creatures  is  need- 
ftil  too.  Atrophy  of  the  heart  has  been  at  the  bottom 
of  how  much  earthly  niggardliness  !  Let  love  be  a 
hoard  and  hive  for  others,  not  ourselves,  and  we  shall 
be  spendthrifts  in  no  sense,  but  economists  in  all,  and, 
in  Charles  Lamb's  expression,  keep  poverty  at  a  sub- 
limer  distance  than  if  we  had  the  exchequer  of  a  king. 
Our  Senator  Sumner  said  he  had  never  dipped  his  hand 
into  the  United  States  treasury,  yet  who  held  him 
poor  ?  Truly  there  is  a  fortune  that  has  no  wheel ! 

Business  is  God's  grace  to  man,  with  all  its  errors 
and  enormities  on  its  head.  If  science  be  the  ruling 
queen,  business  is  the  modern  king.  Its  activities  are 
worth  more  than  its  gains,  as  that  good  merchant  saw 
who  only  wished  for  his  children  as  much  happiness  in 
spending  as  his  had  been  in  earning  his  estate.  It  is 
time  to  have  done  with  decrying  riches  and  success. 
Professors  of  poverty  exist  no  longer  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  nor  can  the  beggars  of  the  Middle  Ages  again 
become  a  political  force.  There  is  no  virtue  in  being 
shoeless,  or  not  having  where  to  lay  one's  head.  Doubt 
less  there  are  God's  poor ;  but  he  has  his  rich,  too,  who 
are  just  as  good  and  perhaps  more  strong  for  his 
service.  The  apostle  James,  launching  his  thunders 


BUSINESS.  223 

against  rich  men,  missed  his  Master's  point,  who  bade 
his  disciples  not  lay  up  treasure  for  themselves.  Disin 
terested  acquisition  of  knowledge  or  wealth  is  the  sum 
mit  of  character.  Unhappy  man  who  gathers  and 
broods  over  his  selfish  store !  He  is  outranked  in 
merit  by  the  hen  scratching  for  her  young,  by  the 
swallow  bearing  a  worm  to  the  eaves  of  the  barn  for 
her  nestling,  and  by  the  grub  and  beetle  rolling  up  a 
provision,  though  in  a  ball  of  dung,  for  their  offspring. 
The  solitary  and  loveless  human  creature  whom  I  saw 
pick  up  ordure  on  the  highway  in  a  pail,  while  he  had 
in  the  bank  thousands  of  dollars  too  sacred  to  touch, 
is  the  t}"pe  of  all  the  misers  who,  with  clean  hands  and 
a  decent  demeanor,  do  dirtier  things.  These  are  but 
exceptions.  Most  business  men  are  too  intent  on  great 
results  to  stoop  to  the  tricks  of  trade.  From  a  million 
spokes  turning,  and  myriad  hoofs  striking  the  ground, 
some  dust  will  fall,  and  some  fire  fly.  But  the  immense 
operation  is  benign,  to  educate  powers  to  surpass  all 
issues  of  worldly  profit  and  loss  ;  and  the  contributions 
"by  business  men  of  material  aid  for  every  want  of  soci 
ety,  need  of  the  Church,  or  emergency  of  the  State  have 
been  so  timely  and  large  that  the  preacher  who  denounces 
monej'-rnaking  as  profane  and  the  bawling  lecturer  who 
scores  bond-holders  as  the  laborer's  foes,  were  their 
words  potential,  would  but  tear  down  the  posts  on  which 
their  pulpit  and  platform  are  reared.  What  matters, 
O  radical,  whom  you  hate,  if  you  hate?  God  is  not 
poor,  but  abundant  in  means  ;  and  the  opulent  are  as 
akin  to  him  in  nature,  while  more  like  in  condition, 
than  the  destitute.  If  the  reformer  and  ostensible  friend 
of  the  forsaken  have  enmity  in  his  heart,  it  will  reach 


224  PRINCIPLES. 

the  class  he  favors  as  well  as  that  he  resists.  If  the 
Irishman  wishes  to  crowd  and  trample  on  the  African 
or  Chinaman,  that  has  a  lower  place  and  a  harder  strug 
gle  than  himself,  as  the  house-slave  used  to  visit  the 
field-slave  with  his  contempt,  with  what  face  can  he 
pretend  to  be  a  philanthropist,  while  he  cares  only  for 
his  own  clan?  In  the  eyes  of  those  he  flatters  he  is 
cloven-footed,  and  makes  a  travelling  show  of  himself, 
yet  is  useful  to  run  into  the  ground  the  arguments  of 
the  demagogue,  who  in  politics  is  more  cunning  than 
he.  He  is  the  same  rogue  and  blusterer  as  the  one  in 
broadcloth,  only  he  is  by  his  coarser  speech  more 
exposed. 

Business  is  sanctified  by  a  motive  for  private  welfare 
and  for  the  public  good  ;  and  the  pecuniary  thus  goes 
along  as  a  fast  friend  with  the  moral  capital  of  the  hu 
man  race.  All  the  winnings,  having  whatever  repre 
sentation  on  earth,  will  be  consumed  or  swept  away ; 
but  the  principles  developed  by  ephemeral  transactions 
will  abide. 

The  merchant  is  a  man  in  whom  prudence  is  com 
bined  with  enterprise  for  a  forecast,  to  whose  fruits  he 
is  entitled  as  much  as  a  candidate  at  the  patent-office 
with  his  invention,  or  an  author  to  a  reward  for  his 
book ;  and  he  is  to  dispose  of  these  fruits  at  his  will. 
In  charity  the  merit  is  cheerful  giving,  and  the  impor 
tunate  philanthropist,  who  will  take  our  dollar  in  any 
other  fashion,  is  the  last  robber  on  the  highwa}r !  In 
this  world  it  is  a  race  of  wits.  As  in  the  yacht-squad 
ron,  all  do  not  get  prizes,  nor  are  the  prizes  all  equal, 
nor  have  the  crowd  a  right  to  wrest  away  any  that  is 
fairly  won.  God  makes  men  to  differ  in  faculty  and 


BUSINESS. 


225 


fortune,  and  neither  their  bodies  nor  their  minds  can  be 
made  alike.  A  mob  has  never  yet  reigned;  and  the 
serpent  of  communism,  more  threatening  than  the  one 
Eve  talked  with  in  Eden,  now  rearing  its  crest,  would 
bring  not  plenty,  but  poverty,  to  everybody  with  its 
universal  mob  law. 

But  the  true  merchant  will  be  forbearing  as  well  as 
just,  and  consider  it  a  libel  on  his  business  to  say  that 
the  uttermost  farthing  must  be  exacted  and  the  last  of 
the  forty  stripes  fall.  Commerce  is  a  high  school,  a  col 
lege  better  than  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  to  educate  cori- 
science.  But  equity  has  a  higher  law  than  legality,  and 
a  larger  measure  than  our  dues  in  dollars  and  cents ; 
and  he  who  spurns  or  rejoices  to  outstrip  his  halting  or 
timid  competitors,  nor  will  ever  lend  a  hand  but  to  take 
advantage  when  they  slip,  though  he  be  square  with 
every  statute  a  lawyer  could  quote,  plunders  and  does 
not  earn.  There  is  an  admission  fatal  to  the  dignity, 
and  even  right  to  exist,  of  any  calling  in  the  assertion 
that  it  offers  for  any  virtue  of  kindness  or  mercy  no 
soil  to  thrive  in. 

Once  more,  the  merchant  that  does  not  worship  God, 
like  the  undevout  astronomer,  is  mad ;  for  how  can  he 
fail  to  own  a  preordaining  in  his  sphere  as  well  as  in  the 
orbit  of  the  earth  or  any  circuit  of  the  skies  ?  Is  it  by 
chance  that  these  great  cities  stand  on  the  Hudson  and 
Mersey  and  Seine  and  Thames,  and  that  they  are  fed 
from  fertile  countries  with  corn  and  wheat  and  whatever 
the  ground  can  produce?  Are  not  the  paths  of  steam 
ships  and  the  iron  tracks  of  cars  prescribed  by  providen 
tial  power  no  less  than  the  river-courses  and  the  tides  ? 
The  atheistic  lecturer  declares  he  sees  no  agent  but 
15 


226  PRINCIPLES. 

man.  Has  the  human  creature  done  all  on  the  globe? 
No  more  than  he  made  the  planet  itself.  The  streams 
flow  from  mountain-chains,  and  the  currents  of  events 
and  affairs  have  their  springs  in  other  heights  of  a  su 
perhuman  wisdom.  We  see  it  in  the  curious  suiting  of 
climate  to  culture  and  of  material  to  manufacture,  of  the 
wood  and  quarry  to  become  both  pavement  and  house, 
of  the  mine  to  be  transformed  into  the  mint,  and  in  all 
the  flying  of  supply  to  want  as  to  a  magnet.  Man  has 
done  this  no  more  than  he  has  thrown  up  the  Alle- 
ghanies  for  a  continent's  backbone,  or  scooped  the  Gulf, 
and  shaped  the  Golden  Gate  for  ports.  A  ledger  should 
be  a  good  liturgy  read  aright,  and  a  bank-book  correctly 
kept  is  a  collect  for  the  day.  From  accounts  settled 
now  the  final  one  gets  its  name ;  and  the  temple  so 
long  miscalled  for  Mammon  belongs  to  God.  Already 
some  church  vestries  are  less  sacred  than  some  counting- 
rooms.  To  pick  a  priest  for  myself  I  should  not  seek 
the  Confessional  more  readily  than  the  Exchange. 
Church  and  clergy  must  learn  to  appreciate  this  great 
outside  communion  of  uprightness  and  honor,  whose 
members  may  not  be  dependent  on  clerical  ministra 
tions  or  punctual  at  dedicated  shrines,  but  whose  hearts 
have  been  cleansed  by  tests  more  searching  than  a 
watery  baptism,  and  nourished  and  stimulated  through 
a  broad  intercourse  with  humanity  and  by  a  better  than 
sacramental  bread  and  wine.  Surely  from  an  unseen 
spirit-world  must  come  the  motive  by  which  earthly 
dealings  can  be  so  raised.  But  not  in  a  wood  or  mar 
ble  sanctuary  alone  is  the  door  by  which  the  impulse 
comes  or  window  through  which  the  truth  shines ;  and 
many  a  religious  minister  will  own  the  incentives  de- 


BUSINESS.  227 

rived  to  his  own  fidelity  from  the  conduct  of  not  a  few 
of  those  whom  he  was  sent  to  save.  Merchant-princes 
ma}'  be  also  merchant-priests,  if  they  have,  too,  an  affec 
tion  for  their  home  which  will  never  postpone  it  to  the 
saloon  or  club-room,  make  it  an  appendage  to  the  wharf 
or  office,  or  permit  it  to  degenerate  into  a  lodging-house 
or  inn,  when  it  should  be  the  altar  for  all  the  prosperity 
from  the  toiling  hand  and  sweating  brow.  Piety  toward 
heaven  will  tend  the  domestic  shrine.  As  the  sun  gravi 
tates  to  the  planets  it  draws,  so  God  bends  toward  us 
while  we  lean  on  him. 

The  Persian  proverb  says,  the  buyer  should  be  left 
ignorant  of  nothing  about  the  article  which  the  seller 
knows.  But  trade  is  a  training  for  both  parties  of  wit 
as  well  as  honor.  The  day  cannot  be  spent  in  explana 
tions,  but  the  bargain  made  ;  and  while  sly  concealment  is 
fraud,  judges  alone  should  be  purchasers,  and  fools  sent 
to  shops  will  make  mistakes.  "Look  out!"  say  the 
English,  and  "  Take  care !  "  say  the  French  drivers,  as 
they  meet  and  pass  on  the  highway.  In  affairs  or  affec 
tions  we  must  have  our  hands  steady  and  our  eyes  open 
and  clear.  No  bounty  in  this  world  is  allotted  to  the 
blind.  But  let  the  kindness  match  the  keenness  of  the 
glance. 


228  PRINCIPLES. 


IX. 

BEASTS. 

'THHAT  all  life  is  connected,  and  species  no  absolute 
-••  distinction,  only  a  convenient  term,  there  is  both 
physical  and  metaphysical  proof;  but  no  evidence  that 
ascent  more  than  descent  is  its  law.  By  no  line  of  de 
marcation  can  man  and  beast  be  cut  apart ;  and  our  sym 
pathy,  inextinguishable  for  what  is  below  us,  —  for  the 
cattle  on  the  hills,  the  domestic  dog  and  cat,  the  hen 
and  her  brood,  the  wild  tenants  of  the  desert  and  wood, 
quadrupeds  that  excel  us  in  strength  or  swiftness,  and 
birds  that  mock  us  with  their  superior  flight,  —  is  a  virtue 
less  of  volition  than  in  our  blood,  and  like  the  natural 
affection  for  kith  and  kin.  By  what  resemblances  of 
persons,  not  alone  with  each  other,  but  with  the  horse, 
tiger,  or  fox,  we  are  struck,  the  relations  being  in  tem 
per  as  well  as  looks  !  Any  boundary,  clear  through,  in 
vain  we  try  to  fix.  The  -beasts  have  no  language,  we 
say,  meaning  our  arbitrary  signs  ;  for  the  crows,  rooks, 
and  bees  not  only  have  natural  language  with  each  other, 
but  understand  ours  in  part.  The}7  have  some  apprehen 
sion  of  words.  I  was  told  of  a  dog  who  knew  not  what 
"  bone  "  was  in  English,  but  instantly  understood  it  in 
French.  Most  dogs  will  come  from  out  of  sight  at  the 
call  of  their  name.  The  communication  with  each 
other  of  the  ravens  and  the  ants,  of  the  wedged  flock 


BEASTS.  229 

of  wild  geese,  of  emigrant  swallows,  or  of  the  bobolinks 
is  too  close  for  us  to  discern,  and  only  by  our  ignorance 
is  it  disesteemed.  Shall  we  part  ourselves,  by  our 
affections,  from  the  beasts  ?  A  learned  work  of  a  French 
naturalist  has  just  been  tracing  human  love  to  its  origin 
in  the  least  and  lowest  tribes  ;  and  the  analogies  are  so 
curious  and  minute  that  our  finer  seems  to  open  from 
their  coarser  sensibility,  as  the  flower  is  but  a  blossoming 
stem  of  grass,  the  skull  a  transformed  vertebra,  and  the 
fruit  a  metamorphosed  leaf. 

Driven  from  structural  claims  to  exclusiveness,  our 
pride  takes  its  stand  at  last  on  ideas,  of  which  it  says  the 
beasts  have  none,  as  they  cannot  contemplate  nature  or 
turn  a  reflective  eye  on  themselves,  however  they  may 
be  possessed  of  certain  notions  or  views.  A  cow  seems 
to  have  no  aspirations  ;  content  with  chewing  her  cud, 
she  surveys  the  universe  with  what  a  blank  gaze  !  But 
notice  a  young  girl  reading  a  page  of  some  book  she  has 
taken  from  the  library.  The  clock  ticks  hard  by,  but 
with  one  swing  of  the  pendulum  in  a  hundred  glances 
of  her  eye,  by  motions  inconceivably  rapid,  scorning  all 
count,  she  gathers  up  the  sense  of  how  many  letters,  sylla 
bles,  and  words  !  Is  matter  directing  matter  in  the  veloc 
ity  of  that  transparent  visual  ball  ?  Is  mud  refined  both 
perceiver  and  perceived  ?  Is  it  a  far-off  cousin  of  the  mon 
key  that  at  last  reads  and  spells  ?  I  look  off  from  some 
headland,  and  see  the  sun  set  not  only  in  the  sky  but  on 
a  thousand  points  of  rock  along  the  ocean-shore,  while 
the  reverberating  surge  that  shakes  the  range  of  cliff  on 
the  offing  is  comminuted  into  babbling  ripples  at  that 
elbow  of  sea  and  bay  and  creek  whence  my  observa- 
vation  is  made.  But  who  shall  analyze  or  describe  the 


230  PRINCIPLES. 

sensation  that  rolls  in  upon  me  with  the  diminishing 
swell  of  the  wave  ?  I  only  know  that  the  billow,  doing 
what  no  philosophy  can,  sweeps  away  my  doubt.  Infi 
delity  is  impossible  in  the  mood  to  which  I  am  raised. 
In  the  ecstasy  of  my  joy  no  God  is  too  great  to  believe 
in  and  no  heaven  is  too  high  for  rn}T  hope.  If  the  Maker 
walked  in  Eden  of  old,  it  was  no  better  paradise  than 
mine  ;  and  I  say  to  all  the  godless  as  Bonaparte  on  board 
ship,  pointing  to  the  stars,  said  to  the  ingenious  atheists 
deriding  superstition  at  his  side,  "  Gentlemen,  who  made 
all  that  ?  "  Do  such  emotions  visit  any  animal's  brain  ? 
Is  there  any  thread  between  these  processes  of  my  mind 
and  those  of  the  highest  beast,  or  is  every  one  of  my  ideas 
for  it  a  missing  link?  We  can,  for  answer,  but  commend 
to  both  the  evolutionists  and  the  special  creationists  the 
old  doctrine  that  the  persons  must  neither  be  confounded 
nor  the  substance  divided,  as  reaching  far  beyond  the 
trinity  to  the  manifold  sum  of  being,  of  which  we  and  all 
that  lives  are  a  part  so  essential  that  without  every 
thing  beside  nothing  could  exist,  but  the  loosening  of 
an  atom  would  ruin  the  whole. 

Beyond  thought  praj^er  is  prescribed  as  the  highest 
exercise  of  our  nature.  But  some  of  the  animals  are 
reverent,  as,  long  before  "Vestiges  of  Creation"  ap 
peared,  Lord  Bacon  noted  that  man  is  the  dog's  god. 
Is  it  but  blank  wonder,  no  adoration,  he  feels  ?  Our  life 
is  wonder  no  less,  and  he  who  goes  deepest  is  aston 
ished  most  at  the  world  he  is  in  and  at  himself.  I 
gazed  from  the  top  of  one  in  a  colony  of  vast  boulders 
that  in  some  past  geologic  age  had  arrived  in  ships  of 
ice  tossed  by  wave  and  torrent  from  the  hills.  The 
vessels,  melting  in  milder  airs,  discharged  their  enormous 


BEASTS.  231 

freight  of  stone,  and  forests  grew  up,  girdling  their  vari 
ous  bulk.  On  the  disintegrating  top  of  one  huge  mass, 
weighing  thousands  of  tons  and  bedded  deep  in  the 
earth,  several  fir-trees  rose  into  the  sky.  Underneath 
another,  lifted  from  the  bare  ledge  where  it  had  paused 
in  the  old  drift  b}7  a  smaller  fragment  of  triangular 
shape,  I  could  trace  plainly  the  scratches,  showing 
that  it  was  from  the  northwest  this  tremendous  fleet 
had  left  its  mountain-port  for  a  still  harbor  to  stay  in, 
who  can  tell  for  how  many  years  ?  Miles  away  shone 
the  ocean,  retreating  from  its  former  domain.  The  birds, 
those  little  optimists,  responded  to  each  other  with  their 
songs ;  the  sparrow  and  thrush,  to  shame  all  the  pes 
simists  in  the  world,  flew  above  the  splintered  peaks 
among  the  waving  boughs,  that  murmured  in  the  solemn 
choir  to  their  manifold  chant ;  while  the  caw  of  the  crow 
spoke  of  solitude  and  the  lapse  of  time,  his  voice  seem 
ing  that  of  chanticleer  on  the  minor  key.  With  all  that 
science  could  explain  or  my  faculties  comprehend,  blind 
amazement,  more  conscious  and  profound  than  that  of 
an}7  beast,  was  the  sentiment  in  which  I  was  lost.  How 
immense  appeared  the  unseen  Worker's  plan !  With 
what  care  these  huge  piles  had  been  lowered  or  raised  ! 
How  big  the  planet  looks  when  from  any  height  we  get 
the  least  imagination  of  its  spread  and  curve  !  Yet  it  is 
but  one  of  the  least  of  the  shot  fired  into  the  firmament, 
so  full  of  those  blazing  cannon-balls  of  suns  and  fixed 
stars.  I  stand  and  marvel  at  the  presumption  of  any 
man's  attempt  to  solve  the  thing  I  contemplate,  in  his 
scheme.  I  am  the  beast's  brother  in  nry  surprise  ;  and 
the  steed  I  drive  is  no  more  startled  at  his  first  sight 
and  sound  of  a  locomotive,  bicycle,  military  procession, 


232  PRINCIPLES. 

or  billow  breaking  on  the  beach,  than  am  I  at  each  suc 
cessive  scene  of  the  creative  acts  in  God's  unfinished 
play.  The  village  church  3'onder,  whose  spire  I  see 
through  the  trees,  rests  on  a  bit  of  the  ledge  sloping 
down  from  my  post  of  vantage,  and  the  preacher  within 
its  walls  can  guide  me  so  little  in  my  quest  he  might 
better  be  dumb.  Like  the  lower  creatures,  who  do  not 
pretend  to  fathom  the  problem  or  be  masters  of  the 
situation,  let  me  too  be  mute. 

Philosophy  at  its  last  intrenchment  would  put  the 
difference  betwixt  man  and  beast  in  the  inability  of  the 
latter  to  classify  itself  in  the  universe.  If  it  could  say 
I  am  an  ox,  an  insect,  or  a  pig,  it  would  be  such  no 
longer,  but  a  man!  Is  it  not,  however,  venturesome 
to  say  there  is  in  no  animal  a  dim  personal  sense? 
Some  philosophers  regard  self-consciousness  as  an  infe 
rior  state  of  the  human  mind,  the  ego  as  a  fleeting 
phenomenon  predicable  neither  of  God  nor  of  the  per 
fectly  unfolded  man.  Not  adopting  their  speculation,  I 
yet  note  in  animals  some  degree  of  the  self-conscious 
mood.  I  am  as  sure  of  my  horse  as  I  am  of  any  inde 
pendent  member  of  my  household,  that  he  will  do  this 
and  will  not  do  that,  will  balk  at  an  over-heavy  load,  as 
the  llama  and  camel  refuse  to  rise  when  the  burden  is  too 
great,  and  will  stop  at  the  foot  of  a  steep  hill  whose 
difficulty  his  eye  takes  in.  He  knows  the  way  back 
over  the  road  better  than  I  do,  and  chooses  the  right 
turn  when  my  ignorance  makes  me  slacken  the  rein. 
He  so  well  remembers  and  is  so  grateful  for  my  consid 
eration  and  kind  attention  that  he  will  kiss  me  and  lick 
my  hand  when  he  feels  affectionate,  will  neigh  at  my 
approach  when  he  is  indifferent  to  another  person,  and 


BEASTS.  233 

will  not  suffer  himself  to  be  handled  by  an  ostler  that 
does  not  treat  him  well.  He  learns  courage  from  expe 
rience,  and  scorn  of  dangers  or  ugly  objects  which  he 
once  feared,  as  we  acquire  like  knowledge.  He  looks 
as  earnestly  at  me  as  does  any  companion.  In  short, 
he  aspires  to  be  the  man  who  in  the  great  evolution 
came  with  him  from  a  common  root.  If  he  do  not  say 
"  I,"  as  with  self-complacency  and  so  much  vaingloiy  I 
do,  he  thinks  it  all  the  same,  atoning  for  the  less  vividness 
by  the  greater  modesty  of  the  self-assertion  he  makes. 

But,  sa}'s  the  theologian,  will  you  make  the  beasts  that 
perish  immortal,  to  encroach  on  our  privilege  and  gain 
say  a  canonical  book  ?  If  it  be  difficult  to  conceive  how 
any  beast  should  be  immortal,  the  way  of  such  a  fact  is 
equally  hard  to  imagine  for  the  man,  so  much  of  what 
he  now  calls  himself  must  be  changed  and  dropped,  left 
in  dust  behind  while  he  draws  his  real  self  out  of  his 
present  case  and  environment,  in  which  it  is  so  smothered 
and  choked.  By  inward  unfolding  we  become  conscious 
how  much  of  ourselves  we  could  spare  and  yet  our  spirit 
or  essence  not  be  lost.  How  then  can  we  justify  our 
hasty  conclusion,  excluding  aught  that  can  escape  from 
other  animal  frames  than  our  own  ?  How  can  we  fail  to 
observe  it  in  the  soaring  lark,  the  fish  leaping  out  of  water, 
the  thoroughbred  race-horse  erecting  his  head  like  a  man, 
the  eye  of  a  hound  seeking  his  master's,  the  giraffe's 
beautiful  neck  lengthened,  —  some  naturalists  have  said 
in  its  efforts  to  crop  fruit  on  the  branches  at  first  beyond 
its  reach,  and  however  taking  ages  to  perfect  its  form, 
signifying  an  upreaching  relish  for  nobler  food  ?  Im 
mortality  has  its  seed  not  in  any  outward  revelation 
or  bodily  resurrection,  but  in  the  sense  of  limits  be- 


234  PRINCIPLES. 

yond  which  we  yearn  to  expand.  Is  there  no  such 
longing  in  natures  lower  than  our  own?  We  have  heard 
of  a  horse  swelling  in  every  vein  and  trembling  in 
every  limb  when  first  put  into  harness,  as  a  wild  African 
resents  subjection  to  slavery.  Doubtless  many  a  crea 
ture  feels  that  we  deprive  it  of  liberty.  There  must  be 
a  heaven  for  the  soul  to  mount  in  because  the  soul  is  a 
mounting  thing  ;  and  out  of  that  heaven  by  the  sky  itself 
we  seem  to  be  shut.  The  firmament  is  a  cattle-pound, 
the  starry  orbits  do  not  give  us  scope,  the  Milky  Way  is 
a  veil  we  want  to  tear  off,  and  all  the  elements  are  a  mob 
pursuing  us  for  our  life.  Like  a  racer  scorning  the  ground 
with  his  heels,  we  spurn  the  earthly  confinements  that 
would  cramp  us  and  would  make  the  planets  the  floor 
of  our  abode.  We  find  that  the  fixed  stars,  those  un 
counted  larger  suns,  are  some  of  them  variable,  and  wax 
in  splendor  and  pour  out  increasing  heat,  as  if  to  enjoin 
elevation  and  growing  ardor  upon  us.  But  the  scale  of 
ascension  being  so  immense,  who  shall  say  that  the  sera 
phim  are  not  as  many  courses  above  us  as  we  above  the 
reptile  and  the  worm  ? 

But  no  such  rising  through  the  chain  of  being  by  a  law, 
and  no  endless  personal  continuance  or  everlasting  in 
dividuality,  but  the  moral  sense  prompting  to  right  as 
such  for  its  own  dignity  and  charm,  is  our  nature's  cli 
max  ;  and  can  we  pretend  there  is  any  conscience  in  the 
beast?  Undoubtedly  there  are  manifest  rudiments  of 
it  in  many  a  case.  No  man  ever  shows  more  evident 
mortification  and  shame  than  does  a  setter  or  colly  who 
has  signally  failed  of  his  duty  with  the  game  or  the 
flock.  No  man  is  more  cast  down  than  a  mastiff  under 
reproach.  Who  is  more  lowly  than  the  coach-dog  or 


BEASTS.  235 

spaniel  when  ordered  on  occasion  not  to  attend  }rou  on 
your  walk  or  drive,  but  to  go  home,  and  understanding 
so  well  what  is  meant  b}r  }*our  look  or  word  or  pointed 
whip  ? 

Will  it  be  said,  in  fine,  that  not  simple  moral  feeling, 
but  disinterestedness  or  self-sacrifice  marks  the  great 
gulf  which  no  animal  can  pass  over  to  reach  the  man? 
The  cow  and  goat,  so  patiently  yielding  to  us  their  milk, 
and  complaining  but  for  a  moment  when  the  offspring 
it  was  meant  for  is  taken  to  the  butcher's  knife ;  the 
bees,  trained  to  make  honey  for  their  keeper,  and  light 
ing  iii  harmless  swarms  upon  him  as  if  the}'  had  not  a 
sting  in  all  their  throng  ;  and  the  Newfoundland  or  St. 
Bernard  breed  of  dogs,  saving  the  life  of  the  traveller 
cast  in  the  snow  or  drowning  in  the  flood,  —  shame  one 
half  of  the  selfish  humanity  to  which  we  belong.  It  is 
hard  to  love  a  sharper,  swindler,  or  seducer  because  he 
belongs  to  our  race  and  has  an  upright  form,  as  we  do 
the  dumb,  faithful,  sj'mpathetic  partner  of  our  joys  and 
woes,  who  does  not  covet  our  wealth,  or  corrupt  our 
virtue,  or  envy  our  luxuries,  or  plot  against  our  life. 

Certainly  there  is  a  spiritual  sublimity  in  some  men 
to  which  no  creature  ever  appears  to  attain,  it  being 
God  manifest  in  the  human  breast.  A  man  who  never 
shuts  his  own  eye  before  the  most  formidable  testimony, 
nor  lets  another  see  for  him  ;  a  man  who  thinks  for  him 
self,  and  endangers  all  other  men  in  their  low  customs, 
their  institutions,  or  their  ease ;  a  man  with  might 
enough  to  supplant  one  religion  for  a  better,  and  substi 
tute  worship  in  place  of  superstition,  as  Jesus  disestab 
lished  Judaism  ;  a  man  like  John  Brown,  single-handed, 
assailing  slavery  behind  its  million  bayonets  and  more 


236  PRINCIPLES. 

than  million  whips,  feeling  that  his  soul  is  more  than  a 
match  for  it,  as  David  trusted  his  sling  against  Goliath's 
weaver's  beam ;  a  man  who  does  not  reckon  weapons  or 
material  of  war  when  convinced  of  the  justice  of  his 
cause,  for  which  he  is  alike  willing  to  live  or  to  die,  and 
knows  that  by  all  the  myrmidons  of  bad  usages  it  can 
never  be  slain,  — :is  an  animal  of  a  peculiar  sort,  whose 
graduation  out  of  the  trilobite  has  not  been  demonstrated, 
but  whose  physical  beginning  at  the  meanest  base  of 
organic  life  cannot  be  disproved.  Who  shall  tell  by 
how  many  and  fine  steps  in  its  long  journey  life  rises 
from  the  ground  to  the  pinnacle  of  the  temple  which 
God  builds? 

But  from  the  nature  and  destiny  of  the  animal  let  us 
go  to  its  use.  First,  it  makes  a  picture  of  the  world, 
which  else  were  but  architecture,  a  rotunda  with  stained 
walls  instead  of  the  animated  and  moving  scene  we  be 
hold.  In  what  a  desert  of  land  and  sea  and  sky,  with 
out  these  creatures,  we  should  live !  But  the  earth  is 
made  sociable  by  their  diverse  kinds  almost  as  much 
as  by  our  own.  In  temples  their  manifold  figures  are 
carved,  and  by  their  forms  many  a  canvas  is  lighted 
up.  It  is  because  they  are  so  essential  or  substantial  in 
nature  that;  we  cannot  spare  them  in  art.  Should  they 
all  suddenly  disappear,  how  lonely  and  forlorn  we  should 
be,  with  such  companions  and  auxiliaries  lost,  that  daily 
draw  our  observation  and  give  our  imagination  delight ! 
We  are  enchanted  not  only  by  the  lurgest  of  them,  but 
b}T  the  least.  The  pismire  building  ever  anew  its  pyra 
mids,  older  than  those  in  Egypt,  and  dragging  the  grains 
of  sand,  its  blocks,  as  a  tug  tows  vessels  on  the  stream  ; 
the  bee  buzzing,  with  a  voice  which  is  the  last  echo  of  the 


BEASTS.  237 

lowing  in  the  pasture,  as  it  tacks  from  flower  to  flower, 
passing  at  once  if  it  find  but  little  hone}T,  and  hoArering 
and  thrusting  deep  its  little  spoon  if  there  be  much, 
and  on  occasion  slitting  at  the  bottom  the  bag  of  nec 
tar  that  could  not  otherwise  be  reached,  shaming  the 
human  skill  that  might  well  be  defied  to  gather  from 
such  minute  jars  the  perfect  sweet ;  the  chamois,  a  liv 
ing  snow-flake  and  moving  spot  of  beauty  on  some 
alpine  crag ;  the  snake,  charming  us,  if  it  do  not  the 
birds,  with  the  spiral  slide  that  takes  us  across  all  the 
tramplings  of  the  globe  to  the  garden  of  Eden,  and 
makes  the  convoluted  line,  which  no  arithmetic  can  re 
duce,  the  t}Tpe  of  eternity ;  the  dog,  partner,  aid,  and 
solace  to  Indian  and  white  man,  savage  and  civilized,  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  lavishing  on  his  master  per 
haps  the  best  and  only  constant  love,  defending  his 
property,  obeying  his  orders,  and  guarding  his  door ; 
the  cat,  with  its  clean  and  dainty  habit  and  contented 
purr,  a  consolation  in  the  house,  presenting  the  kittens, 
whose  play  with  their  own  tails  is  the  endless  amuse 
ment  of  every  child,  while  sometimes  this  feline  dimin 
uendo  of  the  tiger  is  a  labyrinth  of  beaut}*  in  the  marks 
on  its  skin,  and  always  the  impersonation  of  grace  in 
its  gait,  to  stir  the  envy  of  any  actor  on  the  stage  ;  all 
the  herds  on  the  hills,  and  flocks  in  the  meadows  or  the 
folds,  with  calves  and  foals  and  lambs  ;  the  barnyard 
fowl,  with  chickens  and  ducklings  and  goslings,  which 
the  baby,  feeling  their  soft  resemblance  to  itself,  wants 
to  catch ;  the  sow,  with  her  satisfied  sleepy  grunt,  as 
her  snowy  litter  are  stretched  by  her  side,  creep  over 
her  back,  or  suck  at  her  teats, —  what  a  canvas  !  Into 
the  wilder  specimens,  of  squirrel  and  rabbit  and  mole 


238  PRINCIPLES. 

and  woodchuck  and  mink,  the  domestic  varieties  shade 
away,  and  from  African  wastes  and  Indian  jungles 
and  Asiatic  or  Alaskan  seas  the  lion  and  sea-lion, 
elephant  and  sea-horse,  zebra  and  ape,  and  a  hundred 
sorts  beside,  must  be  brought  in  countless  caravans 
through  the  world  for  young  and  old  to  visit,  cosset,  and 
admire. 

Without  the  panorama  of  beasts  what  should  we  do  ? 
How  desolate  our  dwelling  and  impoverished  our  fancy 
would  become !  Were  they  instantly  extinct,  how 
empty  our  premises  and  dismal  our  walks !  The  zo 
ological  is  as  needful  as  any  other  garden  ;  and,  pre 
served  in  death,  the  creatures  make  the  best  part  of 
every  museum  and  conservator}'.  It  is  not  strange 
Agassiz  thought  the  animal  kingdom  indispensable  in 
heaven,  it  could  be  so  ill  spared  on  earth.  Were  it  ex 
terminated,  we  should  long  and  pine  for  its  meanest  and 
most  annoying  specimens,  could  we  have  no  other  por 
tions  of  it  back.  We  should  be  sorry  we  had  driven  out 
the  wolf  and  catamount  and  bear  !  It  would  please  us 
to  hear  the  wasp  warn  us  with  his  microscopic  bassoon, 
and  the  mosquito  wind  his  little  horn,  and  the  serpent 
hiss  from  its  fangs,  and  the  grasshopper  light  on  our 
gown  or  sleeve,  and  the  locust  voice,  on  his  trumpet, 
the  sultry  heat. 

Why  do  we  so  hold  to  the  beasts,  and  what  is  the 
reason  of  their  spell  ?  The}*  are  our  relations  !  It  is  the 
tie  of  blood  we  feel,  —  a  kindred  which,  if  science  did 
not  establish,  we  could  not  disown.  There  is,  moreover, 
a  moral  interest.  The  beast  is  the  mirror  of  the  man. 
In  its  features,  as  in  a  glass,  he  sees  his  face.  His 
own  qualities,  magnified  or  reduced,  return  to  him  from 


BEASTS.  239 

these  inferior  shapes  ;  and  if  so  represented  that  they  run 
into  extremes,  }7et  he  is  instructed  and  pleased,  as  con- 
VBX  and  concave  reflectors,  even  by  exaggeration  or  con 
traction,  give  us  a  lesson  on  the  proportions  of  the  face. 
How  blind  and  stupid  must  man  be  not  to  discover  in 
himself  the  fox,  wolf,  viper,  bear,  as  Herod  was  Rey 
nard  to  Jesus,  and  the  Pharisees  were  full  of  slyness  and 
venom,  while  both  the  innocent  lamb  and  the  lordly  lion 
of  Judah  were  emblems  of  the  Christ !  How  easily  we 
distribute  the  lineaments  of  our  acquaintances  among 
the  four-footed  tribes  !  "You  have  made  your  sitter," 
one  said  to  the  artist,  "  look  like  a  fox."  "  That  is  what 
he  is,"  the  painter  replied.  Surely  no  creature  creeping, 
as  with  pain,  from  one  green  limb  to  another  in  the 
thicket,  to  pause  and  devour  its  prey,  is  more  truly  the 
sloth  than  is  many  a  man,  while  no  claws  in  the  pan 
ther  are  sharper  than  some  women's  to  scratch.  I  have 
known  a  whole  town  to  be  no  better  than  a  dog  in  the 
manger,  not  enjoying,  nor  allowing  the  ox  to  enjo}^,  the 
hay.  It  said  to  its  citizens,  "  We  will  not  use  a  certain 
territory  for  one  purpose,  and  you  shall  not  use  it  for 
another.  It  shall  be  neither  road  nor  landscape,  nei 
ther  field  nor  pond."  From  the  gravel-heap  in  the  yard 
my  older  cow  regularly  hooked  her  younger  sister  down. 
What  is  the  pulpit  but  just  such  a  gravel-heap  to  the 
occupant  who  would  confine  it  to  the  amount  of  ortho 
doxy  harvested  by  his  sect  or  concrete  in  his  brain  ? 

We  should  thank  the  beasts  for  their  rhetorical  contri 
butions  to  strengthen  and  enrich  our  vernacular  tongue. 
Said  Burke,  in  the  famous  trial  of  Hastings,  "  We  did 
not  say  he  was  a  lion  or  tiger ;  we  said  he  was  a  weasel 
and  a  fox."  The  English  orator  wished  to  confine  the 


240  PRINCIPLES. 

culprit  for  characterization  to  the  baser  and  deny  to 
him  the  grander  properties  of  the  inferior  tribes.  It  is 
a  poor  style  of  writing  or  of  speech  in  which  meadows 
do  not  bloom,  and  wings  fly  over,  and  feet  career.  It 
is  what  we  call  abstract,  that  is,  dead.  The  livelier  man 
ner  of  expression  will  remind  hearer  or  reader  of  all 
that  stirs  and  breathes. 

In  the  picture-gallery  what  a  masterpiece  every 
creature  may  become ;  and  what  a  clod  would  be 
the  globe,  what  a  blank  the  air,  and  what  a  drench  the 
sea,  but  for  what  lives  and  plays,  cleaves  and  glides, 
burrows  and  mines,  paddles  and  oars  its  way !  Birds 
were  the  first  navigators,  and  insects  the  original,  au 
gers.  There  were  nests  in  banks  before  men  dug  with 
spades,  and  half  our  implements  are  copies  of  living 
tools  that  wrought  before 

"Adam  delved  or  Eva  span." 

Let  us  consider  the  lessons  the  animals  give.  We 
are  told  that  civilization  has  its  measure  in  our  distance 
from  the  beast,  as  the  forehead  advances  and  the  jaw 
retreats.  But  the  high  facial  angle  covers  much  con 
trivance  of  sin.  "  Work  the  beast  out  of  your  compo 
sition,"  the  moralist  enjoins.  Softly,  and  not  so  fast ! 
Much  soul  of  goodness  is  in  these  humble  forms,  would 
we  "  observingly  distil  it  out."  How  temperate  and 
pure  nature  is  in  the  unpampered  brute,  that  needs  take 
from  no  Father  Mathew  the  pledge !  The  swallow 
cleaning  its  bill  on  the  bough,  the  plover  washing  in 
the  seaside  pool,  the  duck  preening  its  feathers  and 
shaking  the  cleansing  drops  from  its  sides,  the  cow 
licking  its  mate  in  the  pasture  or  the  calf  in  the  stall,  the 


BEASTS.  241 

gull  and  eagle  loving  the  ventilation  through  every  pin 
ion  and  organ  in  their  lofty  flight,  make  suggestions  to 
those  ignorant  of  the  bath,  clad  untidily,  lounging  on 
sofas,  or  stifling  in  dens.  In  some  respects  it  were 
worse  for  them  to  be  men  than  for  us  to  be  brutes ! 

"  He  calls  it  reason,  hence  his  power's  increased 
To  be  far  beastlier  than  any  beast," 

says  MepJiistopheles  of  the  man.  To  work  like  a 
beaver,  or  be  busy  as  a  bee,  is  the  praise  of  but 
part  of  our  species  !  The  spider  was  the  first  weaver, 
before  the  knitting-needle  was  invented,  the  spinning- 
wheel  hummed,  or  shuttles  were  driven  by  steam ;  and 
man  inherited  or  imitated  the  constructiveness  some  of 
whose  operations  in  his  far-away  cousins  still  challenge 
his  own  skill.  The  unfledged  chick  in  his  white  round 
tower  is  in  prison.  But  he  secretes  a  mallet  in  his  bill, 
and,  knocking  to  find  the  weakest  part  of  his  stony 
shell,  he  breaks  jail,  makes  his  way  out,  and  soon  drops 
the  no  longer  useful  tool,  which,  like  a  diamond  glass- 
cutter,  he  had  applied.  Was  the  first  performance  of 
that  little  feat  the  origin  of  all  the  blasting  and  tun 
nelling  and  bridge-building  that  have  altered  the  face  of 
the  world  ?  How  was  that  facult}T  in  immemorial  c}'cles 
accumulated  which  is  knowledge  to-day  in  a  solid  form  ? 
To  know  how  to  do  a  thing  is  more  than  a  speculation 
how  it  has  been  or  should  be  done ;  and  by  this  rule 
how  superior  to  much  of  our  science  is  the  knowledge 
of  beasts !  The  Texas  ant  lays  out  its  garden  beds, 
plants  the  seed,  and  gathers  the  crop ;  and  if  some 
shower  drives  through  its  sandy  roof  to  wet  the  precious 
store,  takes  it  out  to  dry  in  the  sun,  that  it  may  not 
^ 


242  PRINCIPLES. 

rot  and  spoil.  This  is  good  agriculture,  and  a  fine  ex 
ample  to  all  cultivators  and  husbandmen  ;  and  I  cannot 
help  the  fancy  that  the  progenitors  of  the  little  creature 
had  among  them  some  daring  Columbus  who  first  dis 
covered  the  arable  properties  of  the  soil,  and  that  in  all 
our  harvesting  in  field  or  prairie  we  follow  in  his  wake  ! 
We  talk  proudly  of  our  brains.  O  phrenologist,  in  this 
vivacious  proletary  of  the  ant,  all  skin  and  legs,  show  me 
the  lobes  that  account  for  his  works  and  wars,  and  of 
that  system  of  bondage  which  I  cannot  extol  him  for 
setting  as  an  example  before  us  !  Not  all  mimicry  and 
mockery  of  a  blind  instinct,  as  we  call  it,  is  this  indus 
try,  but  rather  the  beginning  whose  rare  strokes  we 
pursue.  The  animals  are  ethical  teachers,  to  whom 
many  a  man  might  go  to  school.  "Let  dogs  delight 
to  bark  and  bite ;  "  but,  O  Isaac  Watts,  in  how  much 
else  they  delight  far  more, — in  watchfulness,  lo3*alt}T, 
grateful  attachment,  faithful  service,  and  in  guarding 
for  their  owner  the  provisions  for  lack  of  which  they 
starve,  till  their  self-denial  is  our  envy  and  despair! 
Cats,  it  is  said,  love  not  persons,  but  places.  Would 
that  some  men  loved  home,  rather  than  the  saloon  or 
club-room,  as  much  !  If  there  be  night-walkers  among 
the  feline  tribes,  it  is  not  apparent  why  we  should  fol 
low  the  poorest  patterns  in  lower  races  any  more  than 
in  our  own.  With  what  patience,  too,  the  beasts  suffer ! 
My  horse  whinnies  to  salute  his  comrade  coming  home ; 
but,  when  wounded  and  bleeding,  makes  not  a  whimper 
or  moan.  Not  having  our  language,  he  may  think  it  of 
no  use  to  complain.  If  that  be  an  intellectual  defect,  it 
is  also  a  moral  advantage  which  our  dumb  fellows  have. 
I  note  in  some  animals  a  natural  piety,  too.  The  house- 


BEASTS.  243 

dog's  deferential  look,  dropping  of  his  tail,  curling  of 
his  body,  is  his  sincere  liturgy,  never  repeated  mechan 
ically  and  without  sense.  My  friend,  after  long  absence 
abroad,  forgot  his  dog ;  but  the  dog  remembered  him, 
and  ran  on  the  other  side  of  the  way,  as  his  old  master 
went  from  the  city  to  his  country-home,  and  waited  for 
leave  to  come  across,  —  a  politeness  far  beneath  which 
how  much  of  our  human  courtesy  falls,  in  the  street  or 
the  car !  We  might  even  learn  to  be  thankful  from  the 
beasts.  Dr.  Warwick  in  England  relates  that  a  pike  in 
a  pond  having  bruised  its  head  against  a  tenter-hook  in  a 
post,  he  treated  it  surgically,  and  healed  the  wound  ;  and 
after  that  the  fish  would  fondly  follow  him  up  and  down 
in  all  its  movements,  and  feed  from  his  hands,  although 
to  other  persons  it  continued  shy.  A  traveller  whose 
dog  resisted  his  starting  one  morning  on  his  journey  by 
persistent  barking  at  his  horse's  head,  feared  the  dog 
was  mad,  and  shot  at  and  wounded  it ;  but  on  going  back, 
found  it  bleeding  and  dying  by  a  bag  of  treasure  he  had 
carelessly  left  under  a  tree  where  he  stopped  over  night. 
The  beast's  virtue  is  nature's  irony  on  our  vice.  There 
is  no  end  to  the  learning  animals  furnish,  to  the  stints 
they  set,  and  to  the  benefits  they  impart.  They  are  our 
purveyors  and  commissariat.  They  provide  food,  cloth 
ing,  and  decoration.  How  we  ransack  nature  for  their 
spoils  for  our  board  and  our  back  !  I  have  seen  a  green 
beetle  in  a  lady's  ear-ring.  Would  the  lady  have  crushed 
the  live  beetle  as  worthless  and  having  no  rights  to  her 
respect?  The  hat,  cloak,  shoe,  shirt,  hair-settee,  house- 
rug,  door-mat,  or  feathered  ornament  in  some  bonnet  or 
cap,  has  cost  a  creature's  life.  How  much  the  horse  has 
done  for  humanity,  for  our  delight  or  profit  in  riding 


244  PRINCIPLES. 

and  driving,  hauling  of  merchandise  and  material,  and 
bearing  swiftly  the  message  and  messenger  of  life  and 
death !  Are  whip  and  spur,  an  overload  and  lathered 
sides,  the  return  and  requital?  With  all  our  ships  and 
railways,  how  could  we  get  along  without  him?  Dur 
ing  the  horse-disease,  when  ever}'  stable  was  a  hospital, 
and  no  carriage  could  be  got,  we  learned  what  the  horse 
usually  does  for  us  even  in  the  burial  of  the  dead,  as 
he  draws  the  living  procession  and  the  clay  in  the 
hearse.  As  a  young  woman  reproached  a  gentleman 
who  took  her  in  his  chaise  for  going  slow,  he  replied, 
"You  must  go  then  with  somebody  else,  as  I  use  no 
whip  !  "  Mounting  a  hill,  we  involuntary  stoop  to  get 
a  purchase  on  our  muscles,  and  ease  the  ascent.  Un- 
check  your  horse  in  the  same  situation ;  he  too  has  a 
back! 

Our  duty  to  the  beasts  is  the  last  point.  They  are 
part  of  the  scale  of  being ;  we  are  on  its  upper  rounds. 
As  their  organism  and  ours  are  on  the  same  plan,  so  they 
have  hints  and  rudiments  of  our  faculties  and  feelings. 
In  their  so-called  blind  instincts  they  are  argus-eyed, 
and  in  some  of  their  manipulations  they  have  Briareus- 
hands,  for  calculation,  construction,  engineering,  div 
ing,  and  soaring,  for  hypaethral  and  submarine  work. 
They  have  love,  memory,  regret,  repentance,  grief,  of 
which,  after  his  long  watch  at  the  sick-bed,  the  dog 
will  sometimes  go  to  die  on  the  grave,  which  I  am  not 
sorry  to  see  his  marble  image  sometimes  surmount.  Our 
selfish  fickleness  and  inconstancy  is  by  how  few  of  them 
and  how  seldom  shown  !  Some  men  and  women  may  be 
infatuated  with  a  pet  creature  to  the  neglect  of  more 
important  ties.  But  the  beast's  fate  is  rather  apt  to  be 


BEASTS.  245 

in  a  cruel  handling  or  supercilious  scorn.  If,  however, 
we  be  vain,  unkind,  sty,  treacherous,  malign,  some  of 
the  animals  lay  us  under  obligation  as  respects  philoso 
phy,  in  affording  us  names, — the  vulture,  coon,  wild 
cat,  or  wolf,  the  headstrong  bison,  and,  in  his  sudden 
spring,  the  crafty  bear.  The  ruminating  animals  in 
culcate  reflection,  and  the  grazing  ones  content,  as  all 
day  long  the}7  browse  in  the  pasture  and  drink  only 
from  the  brook  by  the  way.  I  have  heard  poorer 
preachers  of  comfort  than  the  thrush,  song-sparrow, 
and  bobolink ;  and  for  all  his  depredations  we  have 
never  paid  the  robin  in  cherries  yet.  Rather  than  have 
the  crow  exterminated,  he  shall  have  part  of  my  corn. 
I  should  miss  his  raven  suit,  his  intonation  of  distance 
and  solitude,  and  his  noisy  consultation  with  his  peers, 
if  he  is  part  of  the  flock  or  when  he  is  appointed  sen 
tinel  on  the  pine-tree. 

For  all  the  advantage  we  get  out  of  it,  with  what 
slaughter  we  repay  the  animal  world  !  English  travel 
lers  have  gone  to  the  wild  unappropriated  territories  of 
the  earth  with  the  most  improved  fire-arms  to  slay  at 
pleasure  the  game  in  ef  ery  close  jungle  or  lonely  reach 
of  waste  land,  creek  or  bayou, —  the  eagle  and  crocodile 
for  sport ;  the  lion,  raccoon,  leopard,  tiger,  seal,  otter, 
fox,  mink,  and  sable  for  their  skins ;  the  elephant  for 
his  ivory  tusks  ;  and  how  many  a  creature  for  pure 
wantonness,  to  see  if  their  fowling-piece  would  carry  so 
far,  and  that  they  may  boast  of  the  shot !  The  African 
traveller,  Cummings,  relates  that  his  ball  hit  the  centre 
of  an  elephant's  forehead,  and  pierced  the  skull.  Out 
of  the  smooth  hole  oozed  the  ruddy  gore.  The  crea 
ture  lifted  its  trunk  slowly,  and  touched  significantly 


246  PRINCIPLES. 

the  spot  whence  its  life  ebbed  away,  and  then  swayed 
its  body  to  and  fro,  with  an  Oriental  salaam  or  sign  of 
worship,  and  then,  as  at  a  tick  of  the  watch,  fell  dead 
in  its  tracks.  Were  I  Mr.  Cummings,  I  should  not  like 
to  meet  that  elephant  at  the  judgment !  Against  the 
butcher's  or  fisherman's  business  I  have  nothing  to  say, 
although  eating  our  fellow-creatures  savors  of  cannibal 
ism  since  we  have  discovered  the  relationship !  But 
shooting  or  fishing  for  sport  and  pastime  is  barbarism, 
practised  by  whatever  fine  lady  in  a  silk  dress,  while 
no  spectacle  is  more  revolting  than  a  lout  of  a  boy,  for 
whom  his  parents  have  nothing  better  to  do  than  spend 
his  day  hunting  some  little  beach  bird  from  bay  to 
headland  with  his  long  and  murderous  gun.  What 
have  the  poor  creatures  done  to  be  so  mocked  and 
without  mercy  assailed?  All  animal  nature  is  selfish, 
we  are  told.  But,  in  order  to  selfishness,  we  must  have 
a  conscience  for  comparison,  as  the  ideal  term,  of 
which  the  gross  animal  nature,  however  possessed  as 
a  rudiment,  is  relatively  devoid.  The  selfish  creature 
is  man  !  Are  the  hen  and  the  walrus  selfish  when  de 
fending  their  offspring  against  the  hawk  and  the  hunter's 
spear,  to  which  the}^  courageously  expose  themselves  ? 

I  am  no  doubter  about  the  heavens  and  all  their 
measureless  life  and  jo}* .  But,  as  was  said  of  Socrates, 
that  he  brought  philosoph}*  down  from  heaven  to  earth, 
the  same  office  needs  to  be  done  for  religion ;  and  the 
most  neglected  part  of  religion  concerns  our  duty  to 
the  too  little  regarded  creatures  left  so  entirely  at  our 
mercy.  The  sharpest  test  of  our  character  is  in  our 
treatment  of  what  is  in  our  power,  and  wholl}' below  us. 
Our  equals  can  defend  themselves,  and  give  and  take 


BEASTS.  247 

as  good  or  bad  as  they  send  or  get,  while  there  is  no 
earthty  remedy  if  we  refuse  or  withhold  our  duty  —  that 
is,  what  is  due  —  to  the  mute  and  helpless  life  beneath. 
Yet  it  is  a  law,  curious  and  sublime,  of  our  nature  for 
all  that  is  high  to  suppty  and  comfort  all  that  is  low. 
The  weakest  thing  in  the  house,  the  babe,  is  the 
strongest.  Its  cradle,  like  the  sun,  is  the  blazing  cen 
tre  around  which  all  else  revolves.  How  th.e  mother 
hovers  over  the  child  that  is  lame  or  deformed ! 
Jesus  was  God's  Son,  not  by  chronological  primogeni 
ture,  by  origin  before  Abraham  or  the  foundation  of 
the  world,  but  by  preaching  to  spirits,  descending  into 
hell,  seeking  and  saving  the  lost.  While  the  calf,  foal, 
kitten,  or  callow  bird  remains  jxmng,  helpless,  and  un 
able  to  satisfy  its  own  hunger,  how  the  parent  tends, 
but  when  it  is  strong  pushes  it  off  to  shift  for  itself! 
A  certain  tenderness  to  what  is  a  grade  under  or  a  step 
behind  is  the  touchstone  of  character,  and  the  dispo 
sition  to  thrust  it  back  is  the  generation  of  the  Devil. 
Sympathy  is  the  grace  all-comprehending.  The  sen 
sitive  plant  exists  to  show  that  flowers  have  feeling. 
When  I  see  some  young  Nimrod  cutting  with  his  whip 
at  the  poppy-heads,  which  signified  the  aristocrats  to  a 
certain  emperor  of  Rome,  or  a  girl  tearing  a  rose  or  a 
pink  to  pieces  in  her  petulant  pride,  or  a  gardener  at 
his  trade  impaling  the  just-opened  buds  with  wires,  I 
think  they  are  hurting  live  parts  of  the  world.  Youth 
ful  rudeness  will  be  cruelty  when  it  is  ripe !  The  mal 
treated  animals,  who  must  call  us  to  a  reckoning  at  some 
future  bar,  already  have  some  atonement  or  revenge. 
Whence  but  from  our  abusing  them  is  this  thirst  for 
brothers'  blood  which  a  thousand  wars  have  not  slaked  ? 


248  PRINCIPLES. 

Had  we  treated  them  better,  we  should  have  spared 
each  other  more.  Pity  for  the  feeble  and  unfortunate 
be  our  motto  henceforth !  It  is  no  task  for  base  men  to 
duck  and  defer  to  their  superiors,  to  kings  and  magis 
trates,  to  officials  clothed  with  power,  or  to  those  whose 
wit,  genius,  and  beauty  win  eminence  and  applause. 
What  is  all  this  materialization  in  the  circles  but  a  sky 
larking  after  angels,  whose  shoulders  we  clap  birds' 
wings  to,  in  sign  that  they  soar,  while  we  are  sur 
rounded  by  substantial  shapes  of  being  whose  welfare 
is  in  our  hands?  Wherefore  is  the  celestial  curtain 
held  so  tightly  but  to  notify  us  that  our  business  is  on 
this  side?  Too  long  the  host  has  been  divided.  Let 
us  halt,  and  bring  up  the  rear !  On  our  line  of  march 
we  have  halted  for  the  slave,  we  are  halting  for  the 
woman,  and  shall  halt  for  the  beast.  At  last  he  has 
his  apostles  and  missionaries  and  protective  societies 
and  legal  defences,  beginning  with  the  Hebrew  statute, 
not  to  "  muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  the  corn." 
None  can  do  it  if  he  has  the  kindly  heart  that  takes 
pleasure  in  feeding  the  animals  and,  like  children  at  the 
menagerie,  in  seeing  them  fed.  Is  their  fondness  for  the 
creatures,  caterpillars,  and  bugs  the  haunting  memory 
of  a  pre-existent  state ;  and  in  all  our  so  often  happy 
intercourse  with  the  beasts  do  we  revert  to  the  ancient 
womb  of  our  birth?  Weary  with  fashion  and  ambition, 
of  arts  and  plots,  we  find  that  the  beasts  are  good 
societ}* !  As  Walt  Whitman  sa}*s,  "  The}*  do  not  make 
us  sick  with  pretences,  apologies,  obsequious  prece 
dents,  and  pious  airs ;  nor  have  they  any  follies  of 
avaricious  possession,  respect  for  persons,  or  artificial 
rank."  My  neighbor's  black  and  white  setter  is  treated 


BEASTS.  249 

on  equal  terms  by  my  yellow  cur,  who  has  no  notion  of 
inferior  rights.  What  charming  simplicity  and  sobriety 
are  in  the  quadrupeds  that  we  do  not  intoxicate  or  cor 
rupt  !  Daniel  Webster,  coming  from  wrangling  debates 
at  the  Capitol,  finds  his  cattle  are  better  company  than 
the  Senate,  and  wants  them  driven  up  to  his  door  be 
fore  he  dies.  William  Blake,  the-  English  painter,  who 
satirized  the  ill-tempered  gentleman  by  painting  him 
as  an  enormous  flea,  would  say  also  of  himself,  — 

"  Am  not  I  a  little  fly, 
If  I  live  or  if  I  die  1 " 

Does  the  fly- catching  plant  hint  the  retributions  that 
lurk  below,  as  well  as  stoop  from  above,  for  such  as  get 
by  robbery  their  support?  Justice  and  generosity  to 
beasts  will  win  their  trust,  and  bring  on  that  millen 
nium,  in  which  their  first  impulse  will  not  be  to  run  and 
fly  and  hide  in  the  wall,  creep  into  the  hole,  or  scuttle 
awa}r  in  the  water.  The  keeper  of  the  caravan  has 
affectionate 'relations  with  the  anaconda,  and  puts  his 
head  in  the  lion's  mouth  ;  and  when  the  elephant  to  the 
sound  of  music  walks  so  tenderly  over  his  prostrate 
frame,  everybody  weeps.  See  the  expert  or  natural 
charmers  to  whom  the  four-footed  tribes  flock  and  the 
birds  fly  in  clouds  around  their  heads  !  Snakes  in  the 
East,  at  the  sound  of  their  master's  flute,  uncoil  from 
their  wicker  cages,  and  come  out  to  dance  while  the  tune 
lasts,  and  then,  like  the  graceful  couples  in  a  ball-room, 
glide  obediently  back  each  to  its  own  place.  How 
long  shall  we  wait  for  the  secret  of  the  charm  which 
shall  turn  to  harmony  the  whole  of  life  ?  At  least  until 
we  put  consideration  instead  of  tyranny  for  our  behav- 


250  PRINCIPLES. 

ior  to  these  humble  pensioners,  to  whom,  as  well  as  to 
any  other  members  of  mankind,  a  just  reckoning  must 
come.  Thus  far  the  saints  have  been  too  much  bent  on 
reaching  heaven  to  manifest  themselves  as  sons  of  God 
on  earth.  Let  the  revivalist  learn  that  the  way  of  sal 
vation  is  no  scheme  or  form,  no  temple-gate  or  closet- 
door,  but  goodness  and  equity  to  all  by  whom  with  us  the 
boon  of  existence  is  shared.  We  justify  our  own  place 
on  the  immense  scale  of  being,  by  blessing  what  is  next 
to  us.  It  is  a  revolving  and  an  ascending  scale,  in 
which  no  creature  is  for  ever  confined  to  one  spot,  and 
all  creatures  are  somehow  together.  The  universe  is 
not  compartment,  but  communication.  I  believe  in  the 
cherubim,  and  would  like  to  call  at  their  dwelling,  and 
sit  awhile  among  their  seats.  But  I  do  not  wish  ever  to 
be  shut  up  to  angels  alone.  How  tiresome  to  have  only 
one  sort  of  folk,  however  garnished  with  wings  and 
harps  and  palms  and  crowns  !  What  the  shape  may 
be  of  the  coming  life,  we  cannot  tell.  The  Bible  gives 
us  only  fancies  of  what  must  be,  —  beyond  our  concep 
tion,  various  and  manifold ;  the  links  of  life  not  fewer, 
its  points  of  progress  not  blocked,  nor  its  earthly  un 
derpinnings  torn  away.  How  shall  the  mother  behold 
the  nursling  whom  death  weaned  from  her  breast? 
With  what  body  shall  our  beloved  come  ?  ShaU  there 
be  no  space  under  any  form  for  the  creatures  whose 
meekness  when  we  strike  accuses  the  irritable  lords  and 
ladies  that  go  off  like  Chinese  crackers  and  Roman  can 
dles,  a  word  of  insult  being  the  spark  of  fire? 

"  And  now  beside  thee,  bleeding  lamb, 

I  can  lie  down  and  sleep, 
Or  think  on  Him  who  bore  thy  name, 
Graze  after  thee  and  weep." 


BEASTS.  251 

Such  is  the  disposition  to  which  in  the  fine  hereafter  the 
poet  converts  the  lion,  the  king  of  beasts.  May  it  be 
the  mood  to  which  all  our  roaring  fierceness  changes 
now ! 

The  beast  is  the  alphabet  of  the  man  and  the  a  b  c 
for  the  child,  who  finds  more  pleasure  and  finer  lessons 
in  some  playful  pup  than  in  its  letters  or  its  wooden 
painted  doll,  there  being  betwixt  the  two  little  creatures 
so  much  kin  and  common  ground.  What  an  astonishing 
likeness  between  the  horses,  that  first  nip  each  other 
in  fun,  and  then  bite  in  earnest,  and  the  men  whose 
jests  gradually  run  into  thrusts  ;  and  how  much  worse 
and  more  bloody  the  human  behavior  often  is  !  ^Esop 
and  Lafontaine  have  not  run  half  the  parallels  on 
which  animals  are  made  to  set  us  examples  and  ad 
minister  reproofs. 

Animals  are  man's  memory  of  his  birth  and  growth. 
All  of  them  alive,  as  well  as  their  fossil  remains,  are 
links  in  the  development  of  his  frame ;  and  without 
them  there  would  be  no  recollection  for  the  human  race. 
When  David  says,  God  saw  his  substance,  yet  being 
imperfect,  and  curiously  wrought  in  the  lowest  parts  of 
the  earth,  he  anticipated  Darwin.  Inspired  genius  in 
a  religious  singer  penetrated  the  secret  of  creation,  as 
Shakspeare,  better  than  any  modern  physiologist,  has  de 
scribed  the  phenomenon  of  sleep-walking  in  Lady  Mac 
beth  ;  and  in  the  King  of  Denmark's  account  as  a  ghost 
of  his  mortal  poisoning,  as  in  other  passages,  foreshad 
ows  what  Harvey  afterwards  discovered  of  the  circulation 
of  the  blood.  Let  us  scorn  or  look  down  on  nothing ; 
the  universe  is  one  stuff  !  Pull  a  single  thread,  and  the 
whole  web  and  woof  is  stretched  to  the  firmament  and 


252  PRINCIPLES. 

outermost  circumference  of  the  stars,  as  it  is  to  the 
innermost  particle  of  the  terrestrial  globe.  The  mouse 
Burns  apostrophizes,  disturbed  in  its  nest,  quivers  with 
a  like  nervous  apprehension  to  the  man  whose  dwelling 
an  earthquake  shakes  or  volcano  overflows.  In  a  drop 
of  rain  the  insect  finds  its  waterspout,  and  in  the  basin 
it  is  unawares  launched  on  its  Atlantic  sea.  Proud 
men  at  first  wished  to  distinguish  themselves  as  nobles, 
then  for  the  whiteness  of  their  skin,  and  now  at  last  for 
their  human  form.  But  the  biped  may  be  a  beast,  and 
the  quadruped  an  angel  of  consolation  in  unselfish 
love. 

We  cannot  shut  out  animal  correspondence  with 
man  at  any  point.  Is  the  suspicion  of  that  power  we 
call  supernatural  limited  to  us?  A  monkey,  walking 
up  to  my  friend's  porch,  and  seeing  there  a  small  Mexi 
can  idol,  knocked  off  its  head  with  his  hand.  As  he 
retired,  the  head  was  restored  ;  but  the  monkey  return 
ing  was  amazed  and  awe-struck,  stretched  out  his  hand 
repeatedly,  and  then  drew  it  back  in  fear,  not  daring 
to  touch  again  the  marvellous  image  he  surveyed  with 
as  much  respect  as  ever  the  old  idol- worshipper  had 
done.  A  tall  horse,  with  a  wilful  temper  and  good 
sense,  knows  how  to  baffle  the  ostler-boy  b}T  lifting  his 
head  above  the  head-stall,  when  to  the  ostler  he  will 
lower  it  at  once ;  and  a  stinging  fly  comprehends  the 
advantages  it  gets  from  darkness  or  from  your  hands' 
being  too  much  engaged  to  strike.  A  two-months' 
pupp3T,  having  a  number  of  friends  in  the  family,  will 
hesitate  betwixt  their  diverse  calls,  and  leap  after  a  par 
ticular  voice  or  gesture  when  it  has  duly  made  up  its 
mind.  As  a  mocking-bird  will  imitate  any  songster  it 


BEASTS.  253 

has  heard,  and  the  little  child  thought  the  parrot  was 
the  first  teacher  of  the  human  speech  it  mimics,  so 
what  is  the  beast  but  a  continuation,  repetition,  and 
long  reverberation  of  man? 

A  mark  of  some  beasts,  that  appears  largely  in  the 
sagacious  elephant  as  it  turns  its  trunk  into  an  arm 
to  caress  or  an  engine  to  squirt,  and  especially,  too,  in 
some  species  of  the  dog,  is  the  individualizing  power 
"by  which  the}'  mete  out  a  rude  justice  to  reward  a  friend 
or  punish  a  foe.  What  human  intelligence  is  keener 
than  the  canine  to  tell  one  person  from  another,  and  to 
distinguish  between  hostile  demonstrations  and  a  kind 
intent?  Even  the  3'oung  and  untrained  creature  with 
draws  his  teeth  and  thrusts  his  smooth  nose  into  your 
hand  to  show  his  biting  was  but  pla}T ;  and  how  his 
little  heart  pants  to  his  owner  with  a  grateful  love 
which  is  discouraged  by  no  check  or  blow !  Does  this 
quick  beat  in  his  bosom  accompamT  feeling  of  a  greater 
warmth?  How  can  he  discriminate,  better  than  a  by 
stander,  the  intent  in  the  finger  }TOU  lift !  He  is  Fido 
the  faithful,  and  what  a  useful  guard  and  servant  to 
fetch  and  carry  he  is  !  The  Scotch  or  Australian  colly 
is  a  hand  which  the  shepherd  in  the  wilderness  or  on  the 
hills  could  not  tend  his  flock  without.  How  he  races 
after  the  stray  sheep,  seizing  deserters  by  the  thick 
wool,  yet  careful  not  to  pierce  the  flesh,  roping  in  the 
wanderers  with  his  paw  and  his  monitory  bark  !  He  is 
the  man  extended,  and  as  good  for  the  commander  of 
the  fleecy  host  as  for  Napoleon  was  a  sentinel  or  a  scout. 
He  is  conscious  of  his  importance  and  constant  to  his 
task,  albeit  with  no  stipulated  pay.  Who  in  danger 
of  drowning  or  freezing  would  not  have  one  of  the 


254  PRINCIPLES. 

Alpine  or  Newfoundland  breed  in  the  neighborhood  rather 
than  any  man  ?  Is  the  animal  savior  unaware  what  is 
meant  by  the  danger  or  death  from  which  he  redeems  ? 
"  Beware  of  dogs,"  says  Paul.  "  Beware  of  men,"  said 
a  wiser  than  he !  The  dog  must  defend  us  from  the 
man  that  would  break  in,  and  has  often  been  a  better 
protection  to  a  woman  than  a  gun.  Yet  the  custodian 
is  how  often  unreasonably  slain  ! 

Some  persons  have  antipathies  to  particular  beasts, 
such   as  the  bug,  mouse,  worm,  or  snake,  which  they 
themselves  are  in  some  measure  like.    In  natural  consti 
tution  we  are  the  creatures  exalted  and  refined.    As  the 
gigantic  fern  softens  at  last  into  the  moss  which  we  call 
maiden's  hair  ;    as  the  Saurian  monster  through  natural 
variability  has  left  not  only  his  fossil  in  the  rock,  but 
his  loins  and  living  bones  in  some  delicate  quadruped  ;  as 
savages  in  a  few  generations  of  offspring  become  saints, 
and  piratical  Northmen  are  converted  into  Englishmen, 
time  being  a  missionary  more  efficacious  than  all  the 
Board  sends  out,  —  so  of  what  rude,  remote  beginnings 
is  all  living  beauty  the  amelioration  !     Scarce  could  we 
conceive  what  it   is  to   creep  or  swim  or   burrow  or 
fly,  but  that  once  we  did  it  ourselves !     Agassiz  said, 
an  angel,  resembling  a  human  form,  soaring  on  wings,  is 
nonsense.     But  we  feel  the  remnants  in  our  shoulders 
that  may  sprout  again,  and  capacity  for  any  physical 
change,  though  it  must  be  so  that  all  the  parts  will 
correspond.     All    our   conversation,  at  least  with   the 
lower  creatures,  is  a  going  to  school  to  learn  about  our 
antecedents   and  ancestors.     We    are   busy  about   our 
genealogical   tree;    for  there  is  but  one    tree   of  life, 
however  many  the  boughs,  and  though  we  know  not 


BEASTS.  255 

the  future  bud.  Is  the  child's  peculiar  attachment  to 
animals  and  its  endless  delight  in  their  ways  because  it 
has  not  travelled  so  far  away  from  them  in  its  own 
development  as  the  man?  As  we  see  some  bit  of 
handiwork  grow  into  proportion  after  some  pattern 
under  the  restless  needle,  and  take  on  its  fine  hues,  we 
feel  that  our  body  is  a  piece  that  has  been  long  wrought 
upon,  and  is  not  finished  yet ;  and  although  we  are  not 
blind  to  the  doom  to  be  dissolved  of  each  particular 
specimen  of  the  human  frame,  yet  we  have  dim  antici 
pations  how  the  organism  could  be  improved.  Every 
oculist  knows  there  never  was  a  perfect  eye.  But  will 
such  an  one  never  be?  The  old  invalid  statesman 
said  the  owner  of  his  mortal  tenement  had  refused  to 
make  repairs.  Was  it  because  of  his  intent  to  build  a 
better  in  its  place?  What  is  the  grave,  or  the  decay 
in  it,  but  like  the  heap  of  demolition  foul  and  dusty  on 
the  street  where  a  new  structure  is  to  rise  ?  The  ground 
is  worth  more  than  the  edifice  or  any  material ;  and  we 
have  a  native  trust  in  the  architect  that  the  ground- 
rent,  which  is  our  very  being,  will  run  on.  "Have 
you  finished  the  lecture  you  are  going  to  deliver?"  a 
famous  speaker  was  asked.  u  Never,"  was  his  reply. 
"  I  have  not  done  with  you,"  is  the  threat  held  over 
one  with  whom  we  have  an  unsettled  account.  God 
is  not  done  with  us,  or  we  with  one  another  or 
with  ourselves.  There  is  sequel  and  consequence  al 
ways.  The  sinner,  like  the  old  thief  that  drew  the 
oxen  backward  into  his  cave,  wishes  to  leave  no  track 
to  betray  his  doing.  But,  as  the  ancient  mud  has 
become  stone  to  tell  what  creature  walked  over  it,  so 
the  mire  of  our  iniquitj"  shall  turn  to  a  revealing  petri- 


256  PRINCIPLES. 

faction  on  our  path,  and  testify  of  our  cruelt}-  and 
abuse,  especially  to  the  dumb  and  unarmed,  that  could 
not  return  our  insults,  or  help  and  defend  themselves. 
There  shall  be  long  echoes  from  the  lash  of  abuse  and 
the  slaughtering  gun.  Under  the  shadow  of  tj-rannical 
sway  over  the  weak  and  the  poor  must  the  author  of 
the  book  of  Genesis  have  written  that  man  is  the  lower 
creation's  lord.  How  much  license  to  crowd  these 
doubly  depressed  inferiors  has  been  drawn  from  his 
words  !  The  time  has  come  to  deny  ownership  so  entire 
and  to  accuse  oppression  so  severe.  Not  only  a  human 
slave,  but  whatever  breathes,  has  rights  we  are  bound  to 
respect.  "  Dead  men  tell  no  tales,"  sa}T  the  murderers, 
thinking  it  best  to  put  witnesses  to  their  crimes  out  of 
the  way.  But  at  the  great  assizes  will  they  be  ab 
sentees,  or  will  God  count  as  murder  only  that  com 
mitted  against  what  we  call  our  own  kind  ? 

There  must  be  some  asylum  for  the  injured  beasts, 
which  hospitals  for  stray  dogs  predict.  Persecuted 
birds  have  a  notion  of  escape  and  refuge.  As  I  sat  in 
a  rustic  tower,  some  blue-tailed  swallows  flew  to  the 
trap-door.  One  entered,  evidently  in  great  distress. 
Others,  fearing  either  to  go  in  or  stay  out,  hovered 
and  stooped  on  their  own  bent  beaks  and  fluttering 
wings,  as  pictures  at  once  of  beauty  and  despair. 
Again  and  again  they  departed  and  returned,  as  if, 
like  the  Hebrew  Psalmist,  these  sweet  singers  too 
were  after  some  citadel  of  defence,  and  seeking  an 
unseen  and  all-sufficient  friend.  Later  in  the  day  I 
learned  that  certain  lads  had  been  shooting  at  the  swal 
lows  on  my  ploughed  land,  who,  when  remonstrated 
with,  alleged  it  was  gunning  for  specimens  and  not 


BEASTS.  257 

for  sport,  a  business  and  not  a  pleasure,  in  which 
they  were  engaged.  Whereupon  a  little  maiden  in 
quired  if  the  specimens  were  not  intended  for  their 
pleasure  too  !  It  was  a  pregnant  point  to  make.  There 
is  a  gap  in  the  Hebrew  catalogue  of  seers.  The}'  give 
but  an  occasional  hint  of  that  justice  to  animals,  as 
well  as  to  men,  without  which  no  millennium  will  come 
on  earth  or  warrant  be  made  out  for  heaven.  To  raise 
what  aspires  is  the  duty  of  angel  or  mortal,  though  it 
were  but  a  worm  lifting  its  head  in  token  of  repentance 
of  some  ancient  sin.  Scorn  is  the  original  sin  ;  refusal 
to  help  is  the  fall  of  men,  and  the  waving  sword  on  the 
wall  of  Eden  is  the  transgressor's  remorse. 

It  is  not  strange  that  we  cannot  conceive  of  morality 
in  creatures  to  whom  intelligence  is  refused,  and  that 
the}T  should  be  ranked  not  among  persons  but  things, 
the  philosophic  notion  still  being  that  they  are  but  au 
tomatons  or  animated  tools.  Rational  sense  or  volun 
tary  expression  they  have  none,  — 

"  For  smiles  from  reason  flow,  to  brutes  denied." 

The  effect  of  intellect  is  shown  in  them  as  in  "  this  univer 
sal  frame  ; "  but  we  say  it  is  only  God  who  is  wise  through 
them,  not  any  skill  of  their  own  —  as  if  there  were  even  in 
us  any  wisdom  but  his  !  Is  an}T  beast  blindh'  instinctive 
alone  and  not  intuitive  ?  The  bee,  with  his  bee-line  truer 
than  a  minie-ball,  so  that  its  intersection  with  a  second 
leads  the  hunter  to  the  hive  in  the  hollow  of  a  tree  ;  the 
beaver,  reckoning  the  force  of  the  stream  in  his  dam ; 
the  squirrel  constructing  his  acorn-store  or  corn-bin 
away  from  the  frost  and  rain ;  the  bower-bird  with  her 
fine  coffer-dam  and  water-works  as  curious  as  are  made 

17 


258  >      PRINCIPLES. 

in  Lake  Michigan  or  on  the  Croton  River  b}T  men ;  the 
hang-bird  and  all  the  feathered  tribes,  choosing  materials 
like  lumbermen  and  architects,  and  suiting  to  the  several 
situations  their  nests  ;  the  many  adaptations  in  the  animal 
kingdom  to  the  substance  brought  in,  of  wood  or  sand, 
and  mud  or  stone,  as  human  builders  fit  to  the  bases  their 
beams,  —  think  we  that  all  these  are  but  actors  and  acts 
in  one  vast  as}'lum  wherein  is  no  mental  sight?  Then 
there  is  in  nature  no  such  thing  as  an  eye  !  Instinct  is 
by  what  foolish  theor}'  set  down  as  imperceptiveness  in 
an  animal  when  it  is  the  most  sagacious  faculty  in  man 
kind  !  It  is  a  talent  too,  in  both  alike,  b}'  good  use  en 
titled  to  reward.  How  soon  the  beasts  appreciate  our 
approval  or  rebuke !  I  have  known  a  motion  of  the 
finger  and  a  warning  tone  from  the  lips  induce  a  dog 
just  weaned  to  lick  instead  of  bite  the  hand.  Is  there 
in  this  no  power  to  contrive,  it  being  fatal  to  our  pre 
rogative  to  admit  aught  personal  in  the  beast?  What 
are  these  fairy  lines  stretched  outside  across  }'our  window, 
catching  minute  moisture  from  the  night-fog  and  turning 
the  light  into  such  a  delicate  diamond  sparkle  as  the  sun 
comes  out !  With  what  stitcher  of  Honiton  lace  shall 
this  weaver,  who  has  retired  with  his  loom,  be  com 
pared  !  The  weaver  is  the  shuttle  thrown,  and  out  of  its 
bowels  the  threads  are  spun.  But  where  on  the  street 
is  the  weaver  of  any  stuff  so  fine  ?  The  spider's  hands 
take  her  into  king's  palaces,  Solomon  tells  us.  But  no 
carving  of  roof  or  pillar  can  match  the  cords  with  which 
the  cornice  is  finished  at  her  touch,  for  the  broom  to 
sweep  awa}'.  A  little  boy,  when  the  housemaid  came 
to  cleanse  the  porch  of  cobwebs  which  he  had  admired, 
remonstrated  against  the  ruthless  blows,  crying  out, 


BEASTS.  259 

"  These  are  their  nests!  "  We  know  not  how  much, 
in  the  way  of  rigging,  this  spider  acadenr^  has  taught  to 
men,  with  its  computation  of  forces  so  exact,  to  escape 
from  gravitation  and  anticipate  the  swaying  of  the  breeze, 
while  b}T  every  sta}r  and  girder  the  pressure  is  distrib 
uted  as  nicel}'  as  in  any  ceiling  or  bridge,  and  each  little 
rope  tried  with  the  hand  bears  an  astonishing  strain 
before  it  breaks.  All  our  handiwork  is  but  a  cobweb 
too,  which  the  besom  of  destruction  will  level  at  last ! 
If  we  must  hem  in  or  drive  out  the  insects  with  all  their 
plans,  let  us  not  forget  that  we  are  ephemera  too,  of  a 
little  longer  date,  and  let  us  use  some  fairness  in  dividing 
with  them  the  world  and  not  be  behind  the  Hebrew  mon 
arch  by  despising  their  pattern  or  disowning  their  wit. 

What  conceit  of  man  in  his  own  glory  appears  in  the 
chronic  wish  of  his  philosophy  to  make  out  against  other 
animals  a  distinction  in  favor  of  himself!  Only  as  his 
own  he  fancies  an}'  divine  spark.  All  else  is  but  scaf 
folding  and  preparation,  the  beasts  in  all  their  beauty 
and  variety  but  a  chalking  out  of  the  human  plan,  the 
announcement  and  avant-courier  of  the  king  !  But  the 
true  king  does  not  blow  his  own  trumpet  In  rightly 
judging  and  duly  caring  for  his  subjects  his  honor  is 
found.  It  may  be  said  man  seeks  an  ideal  satisfaction 
in  what  he  rears,  and  the  beast  only  a  supply  of  animal 
wants.  But  there  are  some  creatures  among  whom  our 
so  popular  utilitarian  philosophy  does  not  appear  to  pre 
vail,  who  make  subterranean  mines  and  galleries  for  pure 
pleasure  without  search  for  food  or  dwelling  or  gold  ;  and 
what  but  a  worse  than  brutal  injustice  can  doubt  that  the 
spinning  insects  which  stretch  with  such  curious  ties 
their  gossamer  threads  in  nryriad  spots  have  a  pleasure 


260  PRINCIPLES. 

in  their  task  beside  what  their  appetite  may  secure,  as 
does  the  fisherman  in  his  creel,  the  hunter  in  his  trap, 
or  the  warrior  in  his  camp  or  fort?  If  there  be  any  ab 
solute  difference  of  interior  frame  between  us  and  what 
we  count  below  us,  no  statement  of  it  has  appeared. 

Could  all  the  observations  be  gathered  up,  what  a 
curious  parallel  between  man  and  beast  might  be  run ! 
We  cannot  deny  likeness  of  temper  and  disposition,  how 
ever  we  arrogate  monopoly  of  mind.  Indeed,  we  use  the 
same  descriptive  phrase  for  both.  It  is  our  neighbor  as 
well  as  his  horse  that  takes  the  bit  in  his  teeth  and  must 
have  his  jaws  held  or  broken  by  the  curb  of  the  law ; 
and  if,  instead  of  wildly  rushing,  with  equal  irration 
ality  he  refuse  to  go,  he  too  balks  on  the  road,  and,  like 
the  obstinate  steed,  would  rather  be  killed  than  proceed. 
Doubtless  there  is  some  cause  in  either  case  which 
should  be  explored  in  order  to  a  cure ;  but  the  resem 
blance  would  be  comic,  if  not  sad,  which  gives  occasion 
for  the  prophet's  exhortation,  "Be  not  as  the  horse  or 
the  mule,"  whose  pertinency  is  not  less  with  the  lapse 
of  time.  The  sharp  distinction  which  the  naturalist 
tells  us  ants  make  between  friends  and  foes  of  their  own 
kind  has  its  instruction  bettered  among  men  and  women  ; 
and  the  moralizing  of  Jaques  on  the  "poor  deer,  left 
and  abandoned  of  his  velvet  friends,"  when  he  was  in 
trouble,  we  find  it  also  how  easy  to  match ! 

"  Sweep  on,  you  fat  and  greasy  citizens  ; 
'T  is  just  the  fashion.     Wherefore  do  you  look 
Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there  ?  " 

When  Jesus  bids  us  ask  not  our  friends  and  rich  neigh 
bors,  but  the  poor  and  halt  and  blind  to  the  feast  we 


BEASTS.  261 

make,  that  we  may  avoid  a  recompense,  we  have  a 
higher  strain. 

In  the  good  of  life  shall  not  our  four-footed  friends 
have  their  share?  Does  not  the  common  nature  we 
talk  of  also  include  them?  My  little  dog,  when  an 
alternative  is  presented  to  him,  one  side  of  which  he 
prefers  to  the  other,  and  yet  is  not  going  to  refuse  obedi 
ence  to  my  command,  cants  his  head  reflective!}7  on  one 
side  with  such  curious  resemblance  to  a  man's  motion  in 
like  case,  that  I  cannot  question  that  the  inward  process 
is  similar,  if  not  the  same.  Beholding  so  much  likeness 
of  animal  with  human  traits,  let  us  not  deny  what  we  do 
not  see,  but  rather  develop  what  is  latent  that  is  best. 
We  shall  ourselves  not  miss  paradise  by  making  the 
humblest  creature  happy  on  earth. 

If  we  will  give  a  name  to  God,  the  only  alternative  be 
side  pure  abstraction  is  the  concrete  term  of  parentage. 
He  is  the  Father.  So  the  parental  feeling,  everywhere 
infused,  is  the  one  sensitive  link  in  which  the  universe 
is  bound.  The  lioness  whom  I  saw,  in  her  restless  walk 
through  her  cage,  stop  to  lick  with  fierce  tongue  the 
young  among  whom  she  trampled,  and  ttfe  lion  in  the 
Paris  Conservatory  who,  Geoffrey  St.  Hilaire  tells  us, 
stood  beside  his  mate  and  laid  his  solemn  and  tawny 
paw  on  her  breast,  in  the  sight  of  him  and  his  friend,  the 
day  their  whelp  died,  were  but  examples  of  a  sentiment 
which  must  have  begotten  what  it  pervades,  and  which, 
shining  in  the  most  brutal  form,  appeals  to  the  highest, 
and  finds  in  men  and  angels  the  reflection  of  itself. 

No  materialism  is  implied  in  maintaining  man's  rela 
tionship  with  the  beast.  The  divine  inspiration  flows, 
as  Theodore  Parker  said,  "  into  bee  and  behemoth"  as 


262  PRINCIPLES. 

well  as  into  the  soul.  Each  creature  receives  it  accord 
ing  to  its  measure.  But  materialism  denies  that  any 
creature  is  its  receptacle,  and  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  any  one  Giver  of  all.  It  is  the  doctrine,  not  of 
unity,  but  of  multiplicity ;  it  accredits  the  elements,  but 
has  no  faith  in  spirit ;  it  affirms  origins  of  things,  but 
disowns  Origin  or  Originator.  The  spiritual  philoso 
phy  admits  physical  germs  corresponding  to  archetypes, 
every  person  deriving  from  some  one  idea,  and  every 
animal  or  plant  also  having  in  the  great  mind  an  idea 
of  its  own. 


POLITICS.  203 


X. 

POLITICS. 

A  LTHOUGH  the  Bible  have  spots,  it  is  no  more 
•fA,  obsolete  than  the  sun  ;  and  while  critics  talk  of 
the  light  having  gone  out  of  it,  the  preachers  and  peo 
ple  are  startled  with  new  applications  of  ancient  texts. 
What  makes  daylight  of  duty  for  us  as  well  as  for  the 
patriarchs  is  none  the  worse  for  being  old.  So,  when 
the  Psalmist  warns  us  against  u  fellowship  with  the 
throne  of  iniquit}^  that  frameth  mischief  by  a  law,"  we 
seem  to  be  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  Florida,  or 
Oregon !  Legal  injustice  is  the  most  pernicious  and 
aggravated  of  all  wrong.  An  injuiy  committed  by  a 
private  person  backed  by  no  statute,  but  condemned  by 
some  specific  enactment  of  Congress  or  the  Legislature, 
that  fits  his  deed,  is  small  and  brief  compared  with  that 
which  an  assumed  public  authority  empowers  and  arms. 
Examples  may  be  found  in  laws  concerning  lotteries, 
unrestricted  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors,  the  return  of 
fugitive  slaves,  exclusive  privileges,  monopolies  in  trade, 
penalties  disproportioned  to  crime,  and  every  form  of 
excessive  or  tyrannical  tax.  But  laws  well-meant  for 
the  just  protection  of  the  communit}7  may  be  so  framed, 
that  is,  turned  and  twisted  in  the  executive  hand,  as  to 
work  mischief  in  the  land,  as  we  saw  in  Louisiana,  and 
now  observe  in  that  former  part  of  Massachusetts  long 


264  PRINCIPLES. 

ago  set  off  under  the  name  of  Maine.  It  is  a  curiosity 
in  American  politics  that  in  just  that  territory  where 
the  ignorance  or  illiteracy  is  the  least  —  the  popula 
tion  of  Maine  being  reported  the  best  educated  in  the 
common  branches  in  the  whole  United  States  —  guber 
natorial  ingenuit}*  should  have  found  errors  in  spelling 
among  the  many  petty  faults  for  which  it  is  decided  to 
disfranchise  the  folks.  One  who  was  born  and  grew  up 
amongst  those  farmers,  teamsters,  lumbermen,  and  fish 
ermen  on  the  Kennebec,  Penobscot,  and  Androscog- 
gin,  and  along  the  shore,  as  well  as  the  Supreme  Court 
whose  decision  has  just  so  badly  broken  the  gubernato 
rial  chair,  may  know  what  plain  people  the3T  are,  rough  in 
speech  and  manner,  and  with  a  grim  humor  that  would 
have  rejoiced  Abraham  Lincoln's  heart,  and  with  not 
much  disposition  to  be  in  an}^  way  cheated  out  of  their 
rights.  The  over-readiness  of  some  even  of  their  clergy 
in  the  late  crisis  to  shoulder  the  old  revolutionary  mus 
ket  again,  and  the  harmless  but  resolute  mob  in  Bangor 
show  what  fire  the  flint  of  arbitrary  imposition  may 
fetch  out  of  their  cold  constitutional  steel,  and  what 
a  foolish  as  well  as  gross  offence  was  committed  by 
the  presuming  officials  who  undertook  so  unrighteously 
to  push  them  out  of  the  lawful  expression  of  their  will. 
There  is  a  wrath  as  of  kindled  shavings  on  the  floor  or 
the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot,  and  there  is  an 
indignation  like  the  sparkling  into  which  the  blacksmith 
provokes  the  reluctant  metal  at  his  forge. 

But  what  has  this  Northern  council-board  done  more 
to  be  reprehended  than  were  the  acts  of  the  disrepu 
table  Louisiana  returning-board,  some  years  since,  at 
the  South?  These  Democrats  have  but  copied  after  the 


POLITICS.  265 

Republican  pattern,  in  Shakspeare's  phrase,  "better 
ing  the  instruction  "  !  That  Southern  manipulation  of 
the  ballot-box  was  an  unwarranted  liberty  and  an  evil 
precedent  indeed;  and  u  the  bad  copy  the  mistakes  of 
the  good  with  deplorable  rapidity."  But  on  what  sort 
or  system  of  morality  do  we  justify  the  imitation  of  a 
crime?  Moreover,  the  cases  in  some  respects  are  not 
parallel.  Louisiana  was  a  half-savage  region,  just 
emerging  from  the  barbarism  of  slavery ;  and  if  it 
was  undeniably  an  error  to  count  in  votes  which  were 
not  cast  by  the  freedmen,  the  cruel  suppression  which 
kept  the  freedmen  from  the  polls  was  an  offence  of  still 
greater  shame.  Never  in  the  darkest  times  of  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  or  of  the  despotism  of  the  Czar  has 
intimidation  been  carried  to  a  greater  extent ;  and  intimi 
dation  that  prevents  the  ballot  is  fraud  as  real  as  that 
which  stuifs  the  box  with  tissue-paper  votes.  Like 
blood  compared  with  water  it  has  a  darker  dye.  If  the 
votes  which  shot-guns  in  the  South  hindered  be  reck 
oned,  the  real  voice  of  Louisiana  was  expressed  in  the 
announced  result,  and  there  was  no  effectual  fraud. 
But  the  voice  of  Maine  was  choked  outright  by  its 
elected  head.  In  the  former  case  votes  that  had  been 
barred  out  were  no  doubt  improperly  counted  in.  In 
the  latter  case  the  votes  which  freemen  had  thrown  were 
arbitrarily  counted  out,  till  over  sixt}r  towns  and  cities 
had  their  representation  as  local  law-makers  and  as 
factors  in  the  next  presidential  election  absolutely  re 
fused.  It  cannot  be  expected  that  people  will  sit  down 
quietly  under  an  abuse  of  technicalities  through  which 
their  citizenship  is  thus  destro}Ted,  or  be  content  with  a 
false  balance  by  which  their  political  weight  is  cancelled, 


266  PRINCIPLES. 

and  endure  a  governor's  foot  in  the  scales  to  nullify  the 
will  he  should  express,  and  turn  into  ciphers  tens  of 
thousands  of  men.  The  English  Star-Chamber  decis 
ions  which  we  shook  off  a  hundred  years  ago  must  not 
be  restored  among  us  by  plotters  who  warn  their  own 
political  friends  against  the  trap  of  phraseology  and 
informality  which  they  are  setting  for  the  other  side. 

The  danger  to  this  country  is  not  from  the  universal 
suffrage  about  which  our  Jeremiahs  and  Cassandras 
have  croaked  so  much,  —  no,  not  though  it  were  univer 
sal  among  women  as  well  as  men,  —  but  from  a  per 
verted  construction  of  the  forms  of  law,  to  work  intents 
opposite  from  the  purposes  for  which  they  were  devised. 
The  Apostle  Paul  was  as  good  a  politician  as  he  was 
theologian  when  he  said,  "The  letter  killeth,  but  the 
spirit  maketh  alive  ;  "  and  the  unwritten  or  higher  law 
will  in  this  country,  so  long  as  it  is  true  to  its  fathers 
and  founders,  be  invoked  whenever  the  written  one  is 
framed  and  fashioned  into  a  weapon  against  just  and 
equal  human  claims.  We  shall  ask,  What  is  the  use  of 
governors  if  they  are  to  be  more  overbearing  and  trucu 
lent  than  the  old  kings  ?  Why  call  that  a  democracy 
which  is  an  oligarchy  in  fact  ?  To  the  honor  and  credit 
of  the  true  democracy  of  the  country,  from  all  its  best 
leaders  comes  repudiation  of  the  base  and  villanous  con 
spiracy  in  Maine.  If  the  Maine  executive  was  but  the 
tool  of  an  intrigue  from  the  Capitol  of  the  nation,  and  if 
the  ke}^  was  pitched  for  the  note  he  was  to  strike  in  his 
place,  the  tuning-fork  was  sounded  very  secretly  in  his 
ear,  and  those  who  held  it  dare  not  appear  or  show 
their  hand.  They  that  set  on  the  dogs  sometimes  run 
away !  Indeed,  democracy  cannot  afford,  by  fathering 


POLITICS.  267 

such  a  crime,  to  commit  suicide.  Too  much  nobilit}'  is 
left  in  it  for  that,  and  too  much  honesty  is  in  the 
county  for  aristocracy  to  be  good  policy  under  the 
democratic  name.  What  is  democracy  but  popular 
government  ?  The  demos  is  the  mass  ;  and  what  sort 
of  rule  "  by  and  for  and  of  the  people,"  according  to 
our  famous  accepted  definition,  is  it  to  use  every  trick 
into  which  the  statutory  language  touching  elections 
can  be  tortured  to  exclude  ' '  plain  people  "  from  having 
in  legislative  halls  the  delegates  of  their  choice?  It 
were  a  trumpet  so  constructed  as  to  extinguish  the 
voice.  It  were  to  make  the  people  twist  a  rope  for 
their  own  necks.  An  uncrossed  £,  an  undotted  t,  ditto 
under  a  column  of  figures,  the  word  scattering  with  its 
meaning  not  resolved  into  all  its  component  parts  al 
though  the  name  which  has  the  majority  is  quite  clear, 
a  vertically  instead  of  horizontally  inscribed  ballot,  the 
absence  of  some  single  selectman,  and  the  signature  of 
some  pro  tempore  clerk,  or  any  distinguishing  mark,  — 
such  are  the  strands  out  of  which  the  astute  gubernato 
rial  hangman's  cord  and  noose  are  woven  for  the  good 
people's  throat !  But  the  good  people  itself,  a  little 
puzzled  to  know  by  what  lawyer-like  jugglery  it  has 
been  converted  into  a  criminal  from  its  honest  will,  and 
angrily  rubbing  its  threatened  head,  declines  to  be  sus 
pended  so.  That  proposed  execution  will  never  take 
place.  To  hoist  a  State  to  the  gallows  requires  more 
strength  than  happens  to  be  in  the  executioner's  hand. 
They  who  are  of  the  people  have  a  surmise,  vague  but 
strong,  that  if  an}'body  in  the  premises  ought  to  be 
hung,  it  is  rather  the  would-be  sheriff  and  nominal 
chief  magistrate  himself ! 


268  PKING1PLES. 

It  is  not  likely  that  any  part}T,  old  and  regular  and 
with  a  right  to  be  in  this  county,  like  the  Democratic, 
would  ever  have  conceived  and  hatched  any  thing  like 
this  last  unspeakable  disgrace.  Such  political  vileness 
was  begot  of  that  financial  dishonesty  which  goes  by 
the  name  of  Greenback,  in  an  ill-assorted  and  baleful 
union  with  the  Democracy,  of  which  somebody  ought  to 
have  forbidden  the  banns.  We  have  had  sometimes  a 
coalition,  and  by  it  all  parties  among  us  have  been  dis 
honored  more  or  less  by  turns.  The  present  dodge  is 
fusion !  It  is  a  melting  together  of  parties  that  have 
no  affinity  or  real  natural  bond.  Whatever  wras  fair  or 
candid  in  either  it  will  be  found  very  hard  to  recover 
from  the  melting-pot.  It  is  difficult  to  restore  the 
stamp  and  edge  and  image  on  a  medal  that  has  been 
once  thrown  into  the  fire.  It  was  not  silver  or  gold, 
but  pinchbeck  in  this  case  ;  and  it  would  not  be  strange 
if  the  furnace  of  public  indignation,  with  which  the  usu 
ally  calm  Supreme  Court  that  was  appealed  to  burns 
so  hotly,  should  gape  for  all  who  have  been  concerned 
in  the  flagrant  trespass  that  has  flung  its  lurid  light, 
beyond  any  calcium  blazing,  into  the  remotest  borders 
of  our  land.  For  no  disrepute  visited  on  a  man  can 
match  the  infamy  with  which  he  can  brand  his  own 
name ;  and  the  real  authors  of  this  sin  and  new  Amer 
ican  treason  will  have  their  characters  blackened  past 
washing  to  all  time.  No  glorious  stigmas  will  theirs 
be  on  the  cross  which  they  have  made  for  themselves. 
From  dignitaries  such  as  the}'  the  neighbors  will  shrink 
and  withhold  their  hands.  Even  a  president  of  the 
United  States  who  has  any  wise  degraded  the  station 
lie  held  is  sometimes  treated  with  little  respect  when 


POLITICS.  269 

he  has  retired  to  private  life.  It  will  be  charity  to  let 
the  lesser  luminaries  in  this  base  spectacle  and  igno 
minious  show,  leave  whatever  ill  odor  it  may,  go  out 
altogether  in  the  dark  when  they  shall  have  been  dis 
possessed  of  the  posts  in  which  for  a  time  they  un 
worthily  stood. 

In  a  free  country,  whose  citizens  are  jealous  of  their 
reserved  rights  and  easily  stirred  by  injustice  to  resist 
ance,  no  transgression  can  be  so  great  as  that  malver 
sation  or  malfeasance  in  office  which  moves  to  rebellion 
and  excites  contention.  If  blood  should  flow,  they  would 
be  responsible  who  have  instigated  or  aided  and  abetted 
the  civil  strife.  Men  differ  congenitally  in  the  acuteness 
of  their  moral  feeling ;  and  some  seem  to  be  so  devoid 
of  conscience,  in  their  relations  to  society  and  the  body 
politic,  that  color-blindness  is  the  true  figure  for  their 
defect  of  inward  sight.  But  as  those  who  cannot  dis 
tinguish  red  from  blue  or  white  are  not  fit  for  pilots  or 
engineers,  so  such  as  are  unable  to  discern  betwixt 
wisdom  and  cunning,  truth  and  lying,  magnanimity  and 
what  is  mean,  ought  not  to  be  conductors  of  the  train 
of  our  civil  affairs  or  to  manage  the  ship  of  State.  If 
they  attempt  to  steal  a  legislature,  a  commonwealth, 
or  the  government  of  a  nation,  it  is  grand  and  not  petty 
larceny,  highway  robbery  and  not  ordinary  swindling, 
in  which  these  worst  of  thieves  are  engaged ;  and  un 
less  the  harpies  that  prey  on  the  whole  people  in  this 
continent  are  pursued  till  they  be  exterminated  and 
extinct,  our  reunion  is  a  fiction,  patriotism  is  plunder, 
and  our  political  da}'s  are  numbered,  or  chaos  is  at 
hand  to  invite  the  sway  of  the  sword. 

For  what  is  the  appearance  which  this  swindling  oper- 


270  PRINCIPLES. 

ation,  not  in  stocks,  but  on  human  beings,  presents?  A 
sham  legislature,  in  a  State  House  whose  members  call 
themselves  representatives,  but  who  do  not  represent 
the  State,  and  as  a  body  were  never  elected  by  it,  but 
have  by  tricksters  been  construed  to  stand  for  it,  as  a 
doll  stands  for  a  bab}^  because  b}~  certain  artificial  springs 
it  moves  its  limbs  and  makes  a  disagreeable  noise. 
When  a  minorit3T  installs  itself  over  a  majorit}"  in  this 
country  we  have  a  tyranny  as  real  and  oppressive  as 
though  we  had  taken  back  the  English  Parliament  and 
King  George  to  rule  us,  and  all  honest  parties  and 
decent  men  should  join  to  put  it  down.  A  native  of  the 
abused  State  and  an  American  citizen  —  which  b}r  his 
business  and  profession  or  by  any  forfeiture  one  has 
not  ceased  to  be,  though  he  is  a  Christian  minister  — 
may  see  and  denounce  in  such  a  transaction  the  most 
alarming  menace  to  all  religion  and  civilization  in  our 
land.  It  is  a  broad  usurpation  and  wholesale  cheat. 
It  is  that  forgery  on  a  commonwealth  which,  committed 
on  a  small  scale  for  a  few  dollars,  sends  a  man  to  jail. 

But  does  not  a  clergyman  go  out  6f  his  way  to  meddle 
with  politics  under  any  circumstances,  however  grave? 
So  it  was  said  when  we  protested  against  the  extension 
of  slave  territory,  petitioned  for  its  restriction,  expressed 
disapproval  of  a  Fugitive  Slave  bill,  or  ventured  even  to 
pray  for  the  slave.  The  Almigm^y  was  brought  under 
the  political  ban  !  But  without  such  demonstrations  of 
religious  feeling  in  the  cause  of  humanity,  this  country 
would  not  have  been  free.  As  one  nation  it  would  to 
day  not  be  at  all ;  and  now,  when  once  more  the  forms 
of  law  which  were  made  to  protect  are  used  to  strangle 
and  destro}r,  as  if  the  cord  of  an  Alpine  guide  were 


POLITICS.  271 

converted  into  an  executioner's  rope,  it  is  time  for  the 
pulpit  to  interfere  again. 

What  party,  any  more  than  the  whole  people,  can 
profit  by  villany  of  this  style?  A  party,  the  Greenback, 
which  is  but  for  a  moment,  does  not  deserve  to  be  called. 
A  local  democracy  is  involved  with  it  for  the  time.  But 
from  that  real,  large  democrac}*,  which  must  be  always 
a  potent  if  not  the  prevailing  principle  in  our  institu 
tions,  it  is  as  alien  as  the  Lords  are  from  the  Commons 
or  an  empire  from  the  republic ;  and  if  by  any  thing, 
then  by  wicked  combining  of  this  sort  the  man  on  horse 
back,  who  is  predicted  as  our  ruler  for  life,  would  be 
hurried  up.  It  is  the  Greenback  notion  of  making  irre 
deemable  paper  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  our  debts, 
which,  pooling  its  issues  with  a  false  and  temporary 
democracj',  is  with  such  logical  propriety  consummated 
in  the  high-handed  and  rapacious  seizure  of  a  State,  to 
tr}r  in  vain  to  command  its  treasury  and  all  its  goods. 
It  no  more  truly  represents  the  State  than  do  the  rags 
which  it  would  pass  for  money  till  they  rot,  represent 
any  value  of  silver  or  gold. 

But  for  all  these  theoretic  and  consequent  practical 
assumptions  a  remedy  will  be  furnished  by  the  numerical 
and  moral  reserved  power  of  the  people,  a  residue  and 
remainder  which  no  perverters  of  trust  can  long  succeed 
in  neutralizing  and  affronting. 

Meantime  some  benefit  will  result  if  we  learn  from 
the  vexatious  experience  how  some  of  our  political 
moralists  have  misplaced  their  fears  in  thinking  uni 
versal  suffrage  to  be  the  rock  on  which  we  might  be 
wrecked,  when  for  our  vessel  the  reef  of  peril  is  on 
just  the  opposite  shore  of  a  partial  suffrage,  for  which  the 


272  PKINCIPLES. 

universal  one  is  on  occasion  so  iniquitously  exchanged. 
With  the  people  that  framed  our  Constitution  public  hon 
esty  is  better  guarded  and  our  destiny  is  more  secure 
than  with  any  refined  or  learned  or  wealth}'  class.  Voters 
too  may  learn  that  they  cannot  be  careless  any  more. 

The  root  of  trouble,  the  ground  of  jeopardy,  and  the 
occasion  of  reasonable  terror,  is  the  vicious  habit  we 
have  in  our  philosophy  contracted,  of  dividing  the  whole 
man  or  mind  into  distinct  functions,  which,  like  the  water 
tight  compartments  of  a  boat  or  the  fire-proof  chambers 
of  a  building,  have  no  communication  with  each  other,  — 
a  plan  as  bad  for  the  soul  and  the  community  as  it  is 
good  for  the  building  or  the  boat.  "We  say,  politics  is 
politics,  business  is  business,  a  bargain  is  a  bargain, 
and  religion  is  religion.  Do  you  wish  to  trade,  there -is 
the  exchange,  the  market,  the  brokers'  board,  the  bank, 
and  the  gold  room !  Would  you  worship,  there  is  the 
chapel,  vestry,  and  church,  and  Sunday  for  the  service 
to  begin  and  end,  and  your  religion  to  be  finished  up 
on  the  spot !  Do  }Tou  want  to  voT£,  choose  }'our  list 
of  candidates,  whom  for  any  whim  or  reason,  selfish  or 
generous,  you  have  a  right  to  support !  You  can  leave 
your  reverence  in  the  cathedral  aisles  and  your  honesty 
in  the  shop  when  you  carry  your  bit  of  paper  for  your 
clique  to  the  ward-room  in  a  school  or  engine  house ! 
But  all  this  dissection  of  yourself,  be  it  said,  is  unholy 
and  profane.  Your  integrity  should  be  in  the  convention 
as  well  as  at  the  counter,  and  your  religion  in  the  caucus 
as  well  as  in  the  pew.  That  love  of  man  or  love  of  coun 
try  is  baseless  which  rests  not  on  the  love  of  God  ;  and  it 
is  because  we  neither  love  nor  fear  him  as  we  ought 
that  we  have  fallen  into  this  spiritual  calamity,  and  that 


POLITICS.  273 

our  chief  passion  is  no  longer,  as  with  the  fathers,  patri 
otic,  but  partisan.  The  love  of  party  more  and  more, 
in  many  quarters,  carries  the  day  over  love  of  country ; 
and  patriotism,  among  such  as  conduct  the  nefarious 
transactions  to  which  I  have  referred,  is  a  lost  virtue, 
even  as  antiquarians  inform  us  there  are  lost  arts. 

The  inducement  to  party  extravagance  and  unprin 
cipled  deceit  is  in  the  immense  patronage  of  eighty 
thousand  offices,  which  the  general  government  has  to 
bestow.  While  this  tremendous  and  manifold  lure  shall 
be  held  out  to  the  hand  of  the  incoming  administration 
to  dispense  to  its  mercenaries,  during  the  term  it  shall 
hold  the  reins,  the  diverse  salaries  and  fat  jobs  to  as 
many  hungry  clamoring  mouths,  so  long  the  wide-spread 
corruption  will  hold  on.  Civil  reform  means  that  the 
various  posts  and  appointments  which  the  supreme  offi 
cer  controls  shall  be  given  to  subordinate  officials,  not 
as  rewards  of  partisan  zeal  and  as  victors'  spoils,  but  for 
merit  and  fitness  and  while  good  behavior  shall  last ; 
and  that  our  elected  chief  magistrate  shall*  no  longer  con 
sider  it  as  his  main  prerogative  to  turn  out  all  former 
incumbents  of  a  different  stripe  of  opinion  from  his  own, 
and  then  feed  the  pap  of  the  exchequer  to  famished  as 
pirants  of  his  set,  as  a  municipal  officer  ladles  out  soup 
to  the  poor.  An  impartial  equity  of  civil  appointment 
would  be,  not  partisanship,  but  patriotism,  for  which  may 
we,  by  a  good  Providence,  be  inspired  and  prepared ! 
Meanwhile  such  a  process  as  we  saw  going  on  in  Maine 
was  a  dismal,  lamentable,  and  wickedly  contemptible  set 
back  to  airy  worthy  tendenc}'  and  noble  hope.  There 
fore  should  it  and  its  operators  and  apologists  by  all  good 
men  be  reproved. 

18 


274  PRINCIPLES. 

•Let  us  be  no  partisans  in  politics  or  religion.  One 
party  must  for  the  time  prevail.  But  while  we  would 
have  the  best  party  go  in,  let  us  be  glad  to  have  the 
other  strong;  for  every  successful  party  should  be  a 
matched  trustee,  and  such  doings  as  we  have  seen  in 
Florida,  Louisiana,  Oregon,  and  Maine  show  that  no 
party  can  be  trusted  out  of  custody  of  the  people,  which 
is  too  great,  and,  notwithstanding  all  the  telegraphs  and 
railroads,  moves  too  slowly,  more  like  a  raft  than  a  clip 
per,  to  commit  all  together  any  atrocity,  as  it  is  too 
honest  to  countenance  crime. 

We  cannot,  however,  yield  to  the  natural  course  of 
things.  Evolution  in  nature  is  order.  In  society  it  is 
not  salvation,  but  drift.  In  governmental  administra 
tion  it  is  foundering  unless  duty  be  at  the  helm. 

Seeing  how  all  parties  with  long  possession  of  power 
grow  corrupt,  let  us  not  wish  any  party  easily,  invariably, 
or  by  a  large"  majority,  in  this  country  ever  to  prevail. 
Let  it  be  displaced  by  some  other  whenever  it  is  guilt}'  of 
fraud,  or  confines  the  distribution  of  loaves  and  fishes  to 
itself.  Perpetual  vigilance  is  the  price  not  only  of  liberty 
but  of  purity  in  public  affairs  ;  and  if  one  political  side 
in  the  use  of  enormous  patronage  becomes  exclusive, 
the  other  side  ought  to  have  its  turn,  till  there  be  better 
behavior  of  both.  But  both  must  abide  the  unswerving 
divine  law ;  and  if  either  wish  to  slip  out  of  that  }*oke  it 
but  proves  its  own  sin.  If  politics  have  nothing  to  do 
with  religion,  if  the  town-house  shall  ever  be  divorced 
from  the  meeting-house,  the  ballot-box  insulated  from 
the  pulpit,  the  vote  parted  from  the  prayer,  Sunday 
separated  from  the  week,  and  the  community  disown 
its  God,  then  the  State  will  be  doomed.  Every  politi- 


POLITICS.  275 

oal  question  is  a  moral  one,  every  case  in  court  involves 
principle,  as  ever}'  sick-bed  is  the  scene  of  the  physi 
cian's  fidelity  or  malpractice  ;  and  although  any  profes 
sional  man  leaves  his  province  if  he  meddle  with  details 
which  he  does  not  understand,  it  is  his  sphere  to  ex 
pound  the  moral  law. 

When  Christ  would  unite  Jew  and  Greek,  how  we 
stick  in  the  bark  and  cling  to  the  letter  of  his  meaning, 
and  do  not  perceive  that  what  he  would  intend  now  is 
a  cordial  understanding  between  existing  peoples,  such 
as  England  and  America,  Austria  and  Italy,  Germany 
and  France,  of  Russia  in  the  East  with  the  United 
States  in  the  West,  every  kindred  and  people  and  tribe 
and  tongue  being  embraced  in  the  horoscope  he  cast,  — 
in  a  prophecy  how  far  from  fulfilment  yet,  while  the 
Californian  hates  the  Chinaman,  and  the  Irishman  the 
negro,  and  the  Hibernian  the  British,  and  Peru  Chili, 
and  the  Prussian  the  Gaul. 

The  old  Bible  anticipates  our  supposed  psychologic 
discovery,  and  always  treats  nations  as  persons,  moral 
and  responsible.  They  are  such  as  truly  as  are  indi 
viduals.  What  a  mob  of  confused  and  contradictor}^ 
inclinations  the  individual  commonly  is,  there  being 
few  of  us  that  ought  not  to  have  the  riot-act  read 
to  ourselves  !  Our  particular  natures  are  no  more  at 
tuned  to  that  pure  and  free  personalit}T  which  is  the  true 
state  of  a  human  soul  than  were  Israel  and  Egypt, 
Tyre  and  Sidon,  Nineveh  and  Edom,  Babylon  and 
Capernaum,  whom  seer  or  Saviour  personified  and  apos 
trophized,  admonished,  and  summoned  to  the  judgment- 
seat.  The  diverse  characters  and  conflicting  qualities 
of  different  realms  are  shown  as  clearly  as  are  the  dis- 


276  PRINCIPLES. 

positions  to  virtue  or  vice  of  any  of  the  personages  in 
any  one  of  their  borders  or  at  any  era  of  the  world. 
Is  not  Great  Britain  proud  and  France  vainglorious, 
Austria  haughty,  Russia  bearish,  Prussia  brutal  and 
rough.  Turkey  cruel,  the  Spaniard  an  aristocrat,  the 
Jew  jealous  and  money-making,  the  Italian  lazy  and 
vagabond,  the  American  restless  and  rebellious,  and 
the  South  American  disorderly  and  with  his  neighbor 
always  at  strife  ?  Putting  good  traits  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  balance-sheet,  need  we  say  which  one  of 
these  is  polite  and  which  dignified,  which  is  reverent 
or  enterprising,  which  lives  on  its  memory  and  which 
in  its  hope  ?  Is  the  spirit  obsolete  and  gone  out  of  that 
Christian  faith  which  has  purposed  from  the  first  to 
overcome  the  grudging  and  envy  between  hostile  races, 
and  make  this  footstool  of  the  planet,  with  the  conver 
sational  lightning's  aid,  a  friendty  meeting-house  ?  So 
long  as  we  nurse  or  allow  any  prejudice  in  our  breast 
against  color  or  kind  of  the  human  species,  and  would 
drive  the  Indian  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  or  push  back 
the  Mongolian  into  the  sea,  or  give  to  the  African  but 
the  sharp  alternative  of  exodus  to  a  strange  ungenial 
clime,  or  oppression  at  the  muzzle  of  the  shot-gun,  crowd 
ing  and  cheating  and  disfranchising  him  at  home,  so  long 
and  so  far  we  contravene  the  genius  of  a  religion  which 
will  never  be  antiquated  or  useless  till  the  growl  of  an 
ger  and  the  roar  of  war  have  died  away,  and  till  those 
standing  armies  are  disbanded  which  are  the  canine 
cutting  teeth  of  nations,  and  kingdoms  and  republics 
shall  become  a  brotherly  band. 

Politics  is  the  art,  in  public  or  private,  of  getting  along 
together,  —  the  agreement  of  individuals  with  the  com- 


POLITICS.  277 

munity  which  they  create  and  are  created  by,  as  well  as 
concert  among  those  live  aggregates  we  call  countries, 
between  which  the  continents  are  shared.  Independence 
becomes  a  faulty  individualism  when  we  fail  to  contribute 
and  gladly  to  make  ourselves  a  whole  burnt-offering  to 
the  commonweal.  The  old  doctrine  that  we  part  with  a 
portion  of  our  personal  freedom  and  right  in  order  to  be 
come  a  communit}'  is  not  onl}7  erroneous,  but  the  very 
opposite  of  the  truth.  Men  are  free  and  have  their  full 
rights  in  communities  alone.  Is  the  savage  free  ?  Has 
the  hermit  all  his  rights  ?  Is  the  recluse  ever  the  greatest 
of  men,  or  is  he  a  monster  whose  peculiarity  lies  in  the 
mutilation  of  his  body  and  mind?  In  proportion  as  we 
cut  the  threads  of  that  network  of  universal  sympathy 
which  is  the  circulation  of  the  human  frame,  we  become 
not  giants  but  dwarfs,  overgrown  only  in  selfishness,  and 
undersized  in  the  joy  of  our  nature  as  in  the  generosity 
of  our  traits.  Accordance  with  all  with  whom  we  live, 
by  concession  and  sacrifice  of  every  thing  but  honor  and 
truth,  is  the  common  law,  beyond  all  that  passes  with 
barristers  by  that  name.  When  Charles  Sumner  deliv 
ered  his  oration  on  peace  as  "the  true  grandeur  of 
nations,"  that  great  lawyer,  Jeremiah  Mason,  said  he 
should  as  soon  think  of  getting  up  a  society  against 
thunder  and  lightning  as  against  war.  But  we  have 
learned  that  man  can  modif}r  the  climate  ~by  art,  and 
by  love  and  justice  he  will  prevent  or  moderate  civil 
storms.  There  are  individualists,  that  is,  self-seekers 
against  the  general  good,  on  a  large  as  well  as  a  little 
scale  ;  and  the  bigger  the  dimensions  the  heavier  the 
curse.  When  the  Polish  Counts  would  all  be  sover 
eigns,  Poland  ceased  to  be.  An  American  explained 


278  PRINCIPLES. 

his  incuriosity  to  see  the  Queen  by  saying,  "  All  are 
sovereigns  in  the  United  States."  So  much  the  worse 
were  it  for  the  United  States !  But  when  Victoria 
refuses  to  invite  or  speak  to  Robert  Peel  and  Wil 
liam  Gladstone  because  of  their  conscientious  political 
course,  she  oversteps  her  princely  prerogative,  and 
becomes  an  individualist  rather  than  the  organ  and 
representative  of  the  realm.  The  Pope  is  but  a  huge 
individualist  in  attempting  to  bind  the  world  by  his 
encyclical,  syllabus,  or  bull.  The  Orthodox  divine  is 
an  ecclesiastical  individualist  when  he  preaches  total 
depravity  for  all  but  his  set  of  saints ;  for  the  human 
race  is  not  a  sinner,  and  never  fell !  In  both  the  Lib 
eral  and  the  Orthodox  church,  laying  the  stress  on  per 
sonal  instead  of  universal  salvation  was  individualism, 
and  in  principle  a  selfishness  of  the  most  tremendous 
sort.  But  its  main  haunt  was  the  Calvinistic  desk. 
When  Dr.  Ionian  Beecher  was  dying  he  wished  one  to 
read  to  him  the  passage  about  Paul's  good  fight  and 
read}^  crown.  But  when  the  reader  of  the  verse  went 
on,  "  and  not  to  me  only,"  the  sturdy  and  polemic  vet 
eran  bade  him  stop.^  He  was  not  concerned  about 
other  people's  crowns,  but  only  his  own.  Contend  we 
must  on  the  way  to  that  victory  which  is  a  righteous 
peace;  as  Jesus  did  with  the  "small  cords,"  which 
James  Walker  said  he  would  not  have  used  at  the  end 
of  his  ministry,  while  John  Weiss  thought  nothing  in 
the  gospel  more  authentic  than  the  hissing  of  that  lash. 
The  difference  between  a  conservative  and  a  reforma 
tory  mind  was  never  more  happily  displayed. 

But   no   disinterested   historian  can  doubt  the  part 
which  that  name  and  power,  influence  or  leaven,  we  call 


POLITICS.  279 

the  Christ  has  played  in  persuading  the  segments  of 
our  humanity  that  they  belong  to  the  whole  being  from 
which  they  come.  So  much  the  Divinity  can  do  by  a 
man  !  George  Augustus  Sala,  the  English  traveller  and 
reporter,  seeing  in  Italy  a  statue  of  Napoleon,  remarks 
that  he  alone  of  the  moderns  can  bear  to  be  put  in  the 
nude  and  classic  style  of  art ;  for  how  ridiculous,  he  says, 
to  represent  Lord  Brougham  or  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
so !  Jesus,  who  is  in  such  contrast  of  character  with 
any  man  of  this  world,  needs  no  Jewish  costume,  nor 
more  than  a  setting  for  the  splendor  of  his  excellence 
in  the  circumstances  of  his  time.  There  is  nothing 
accidental  or  superficial  in  his  sway  or  in  its  hold  on 
a  future  age  ;  for  his  ideal,  while  working  like  leaven, 
and  claiming  the  elements  for  its  growth  like  a  seed,  is 
still  but  as  a  transforming  atom  in  this  vast  lump  of 
our  nature,  or  like  a  green  sapling  in  the  wood.  The 
thorough-paced  critic  is  blind  often  in  this  case  to  the 
distinction  between  the  individual  and  the  type.  In 
the  great  Master  whom  the  Church  embodies  and  owns 
for  its  head  we  have  a  Godhood  and  a  manhood  too ; 
and  it  is  no  longer  the  details  of  his  biography,  or  even 
sentences  of  his  speech,  that  signify  so  much  as  the 
living  pattern  he  has  grown  into  for  the  conscious  soul. 
If  made  a  finality,  he  were  a  fetich.  But,  as  a  bit  of 
divine  beauty  modelled  in  clay,  there  is  beside  naught 
worthier  of  the  Supreme  Artist ;  and  if  the  reverent 
feeling  for  him  be  characterized  as  idolatry,  let  us 
scrutinize  the  proper  application  of  that  term.  In  our 
time  the  chief  idol  is  not  the  Christ  who  is  an  ideal, 
but  it  is  matter  and  the  material  world.  The  idolater 
is  the  mere  scientist;  he  is  not  the  devotee.  As  a 


280  PKINCIPLES. 

native  reverence  cannot  be  extinguished  in  the  human 
breast,  if  it  be  fixed  on  nothing  in  the  way  of  person, 
it  will  be  fastened  on  something  in  the  way  of  law,  or  in 
the  shape  which  law  grossly  takes  in  earthly  stuff;  and 
if  we  idolize  aught,  is  the  size  of  our  idol  the  impor 
tant  point?  Be  it  small,  uncouth,  and  grotesque  as  an 
Egyptian  image,  or  big  as  a  firmament,  the  superstition 
in  adoring  it  is  all  the  same.  Stock  and  stone,  or  planet 
and  sun,  one  beast,  a  bug,  beetle,  crawling  reptile,  or 
the  whole  animal  kingdom,  protoplasm  or  finished  uni 
verse,  is  to  the  principle  indifferent,  if  on  an}'  thing 
outward  our  homage  be  set.  Any  worship  of  Jesus, 
that  historic  man  and  morsel  of  our  race,  is  idola 
try,  but  of  a  nobler  sort  than  the  worship  of  fossil  re 
mains  or  of  the  Milky  Way.  But  the  worship  of  Deity 
in  him  and  in  all  men  is  the  loftiest  exercise  of  the 
mind ;  and  the  turning  of  our  attention  to  the  union 
and  reunion  out  of  all  strife  of  the  jarring  human  ele 
ments  to  own  and  obey  the  Father  is  the  politics  of  that 
city  of  God  which  is  some  time  to  show  its  foundations 
on  earth  as  in  heaven.  It  is  no  wonder  or  dishonor 
that  all  the  millions  who  have  gazed  on  the  cross  should 
revere  the  temper  out  of  which  the  blood  there  trickled 
down  !  Atonement  is  what  it  meant. 

The  reconciler  and  reconciliation  must  include  also 
in  one  the  Church  and  State.  There  are  corruptions  in 
both.  But  in  the  dismal  game  of  iniquity  the  latter 
so  commonly  wins  that  the  scheme  eagerly  urged  of 
turning  the  former  into  it  so  as  to  have  nothing  left 
but  the  State  is  hostility  and  treason  to  mankind.  Be 
cause  particular  local  churches  have  shown  a  bias  irra 
tional  or  inhumane,  there  is  no  reason  to  denounce 


POLITICS.  281 

and  destroy  the  Church,  or  confound  it  with  the  political 
machine,  with  whose  uses  to  keep  the  peace  and  pro 
tect  industr}r  we  cannot  dispense,  any  more  than  is 
the  profligacy  in  the  members  of  some  families  cause 
for  abolishing  the  home.  Society  is  a  double-flowering 
plant,  and  the  inner  row  of  its  petals  is  the  Church. 
The  time  for  the  State  to  decease  may  come  when  we 
have  risen  above  our  quarrelling,  and  our  utilitarian 
plane.  But  the  Church,  even  in  heaven,  will  never  dis 
appear.  The  radical  censor  while  he  assails  ecclesias 
tical  abuses  is  in  place ;  but  in  attacking  the  Church 
he  runs  against  the  bosses  of  the  Almighty,  or  kicks 
against  the  pricks.  Society,  when  it  shall  be  perfected, 
may  reabsorb  into  itself  every  political  or  ecclesiasti 
cal  form  which  it  has  in  its  imperfection  put  forth.  But 
it  would  stab  a  vital  part  and  commit  suicide  could  it 
rend  apart  even  the  organic  Church  to-day.  That  we 
must  not  cut  that  thread  of  tradition  which  we  at  the 
moment  of  our  little  earthly  span  compose  is  now  taught 
with  equal  emphasis  by  the  scientist  and  ecclesiastic ; 
and  when  infidel  or  atheist  levels  his  organ  of  destruc- 
tiveness  and  the  battery  of  his  brain  against  all  relig 
ious  institutions,  we  rejoice  to  look  around,  and  see  that 
in  spite  of  the  repeated  discharge  not  only  Liberalism, 
but  Orthodoxy,  Episcopacy,  and  Romanism  still  stand 
to  make  of  his  cannon  a  popgun,  whose  execution  has 
only  the  measure  of  a  little  noise  or  smoke. 

Besides,  to  the  demand  for  secularizing  the  State  we 
must  reply  by  an  inquiry  what  secularity  is.  It  is  the 
course  of  things  and  the  train  of  affairs.  Literally,  it 
is  the  following,  personal  or  of  principle,  which  gets 
established  in  time.  It  is  the  logic  of  events.  It  is 


282  PRINCIPLES. 

human  conduct  as  the  sequel  and  consequence  of  human 
thought.  The  import  of  the  Latin  sceculum  is  scarce 
expressed  in  the  English  age.  What,  then,  in  the  line 
of  progress  has  been  the  human  connection,  like  a 
coupling  of  the  cars  ?  Surely  it  has  been  no  discarding 
of  the  gods.  The  cycle  of  dispensation  was  created 
through  Christ,  says  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews.  Irre- 
ligion  would  throw  us  from  the  track  which  from  the 
earliest  times  has  been  pursued.  It  would  be  disinte 
gration  and  no  reconstruction.  It  would,  especially  in 
this  land,  not  deepen  and  propel,  but  dam  or  divert, 
the  social  stream ;  for  it  were  a  special  impiety  to  the 
fathers,  who  made  fear  of  God  the  beginning  and  the 
basis  of  our  State.  By  what  strange  and  insane  rever 
sal  of  sense  has  secularit}7  come  to  mean  organized 
unbelief?  To  be  fair  and  just  to  all  our  citizens,  and 
to  govern  by  equal  laws,  it  seems  there  must  be  no  relig 
ious  atmosphere  in  our  schools,  prayers  in  our  legis 
latures  or  judicial  courts,  chaplains  in  arm}'  or  nav}r, 
oath  or  affirmation,  in  Heaven's  ear,  of  witness  in  the 
box  or  of  prisoner  at  the  bar !  Law-maker,  high  offi 
cer,  or  judge,  if  he  would  shun  guilt  of  treason  to  the 
republic,  must  never  take  the  sacred  name  on  his  public 
lips  ;  nor  must  we  let  any  convicted  criminal  in  the  last 
extremity  appeal  for  justice  or  merc}r  to  a  higher  bench. 
As,  in  tyrannical  or  revolutionary  times,  when  the 
headsman  was  ready,  the  voice  of  condemned  inno 
cence,  that  would  cry  at  once  to  the  crowd  below  and 
to  the  skies  above,  has  been  drowned  by  the  beating  of 
drums  and  the  shouts  of  the  mob,  so  to  all  petitions 
referred  to  an  Omnipotent  Arbiter  let  us  be  made  deaf 
by  the  loud,  calculated,  and  utilitarian  din !  This 


POLITICS.  283 

would  be  a  secularity  of  selfishness,  of  endless  con 
tention  and  bottomless  despair,  substituted  for  what 
has  always  existed  to  console  the  abandoned  and  for 
lorn,  namely,  that  leading  by  mutual  bonds  in  a  relig 
ious  trust  by  which  men  amid  this  world's  dangers  have 
hung  together,  like  travellers  amid  Alpine  crevasses 
to  the  cord  of  their  guide.  What  are  statesman  and 
churchman  but  one  and  the  same  man  ? 

In  this  better  civil  service,  which  all  religious  ser 
vice  issues  in  or  is,  there  is  one  more  reconciliation  of 
science  with  faith.  The  worst  foes  are  those  of  our 
own  household,  and  science  and  faith  are  brethren  that 
have  fallen  out  by  the  way.  When  Samuel  Rogers, 
the  poet,  was  told  respecting  certain  persons  who  he 
knew  were  in  some  trouble  together,  that  they  were 
'"like  a  band  of  brothers,"  he  answered  that  he  was 
well  aware  of  their  disagreements,  but  had  not  sup 
posed  it  was  so  bad  as  that !  Let  us  trust  that  art, 
science,  political  economy,  and  religion  will  be  a  sis 
terhood,  if  that  gentler  name  be  a  more  harmonious 
one. 

Science  gazing  up  or  down  through  its  lens  cannot 
rule  out  that  other  ' '  inward  eye  which  is  the  bliss  of 
solitude,"  because  what  appears  to  it  is  too  great  to  be 
verified  by  the  test  of  the  understanding.  But  the  theo 
logian  must  no  longer,  as  true  religion  never  did,  tell 
us  of  a  six  da}*s'  creation,  of  a  universal  deluge,  or  of 
any  miracles  that  look  like  juggles  with  substances 
suddenly  and  unlawfully  transformed.  Such  tales  we 
marvel  at,  but  do  not  admire.  The  food  in  the  corn, 
the  fish  in  the  sea,  and  wine  in  the  vineyard  feed  our 
wonder ;  but  the  reported  prodigious  multiplyings  and 


284  PRINCIPLES. 

dislocations,  as  aught  more  than  pictures,  affront  our 
mind  ;  and  our  crediting  them  is  the  blasphemj'  of  sup 
posing  that  God  would  go  back  on  us  and  on  himself, 
and  contradict  his  own  lessons  to  our  eyes.  Stories  of 
a  resurrection  of  decomposed  bodies,  of  a  blasted  fig- 
tree,  or  of  a  Roman  coin  from  the  mouth  of  the  first 
fish  that  should  bite  a  hook,  lack  dignity  as  much  as 
rationality.  Science  will  furnish  better  figures  of  power 
that  have  the  signal  advantage  we  find  in  all  observed 
truth. 

This  reconciliation  is  not  equalization  of  angels  or  of 
men.  As  great  trees  furnish  masts  for  admirals,  so  the 
forest  of  humanity  supplies  great  men.  The  hills  en 
rich  the  plains ;  and  without  heroes  the  world  were 
hard  and  dead  as  an  ivor}~  ball.  Individuality  is  the 
condition  of  communion.  But  individualism  and  com 
munism  are  ugly  and  ungracious  twins  ;  and  the  division 
of  society  into  mutually  misunderstood  classes  opens 
intervening  morasses,  which  are  the  breeding-places  of 
strikes  and  riots,  of  feverish  excitements  and  mobs. 
It  is  said  that  in  Sable  Island  the  loosened  horses  draw 
off  into  different  sets,  the  lame  going  one  way,  and  the 
sound  in  limb  another.  But  it  is  not  a  good  example  for 
men !  A  better  pattern  is  set  by  cows  in  the  pasture, 
that  lick  each  other's  faces  even  across  the  fences,  than 
by  such  as  lock  horns.  We  are  but  vagabonds  and 
bandits  until  we  exist  to  serve  our  race.  Stars  in  clus 
ters,  plants  in  beds,  trees  in  groves,  beasts  in  herds, 
and  birds  in  flocks  show  how  we  should  live  and  grow ; 
and  when  we  behold  heaven's  grace  in  a  great  man, 
let  us  not  straightway  excommunicate  him  because  he 
is  better  and  wiser  than  we  !  To  exclude  Robertson  in 


POLITICS.  285 

England  or  Parker  in  America  is  a  mistake,  if  indeed 
it  be  a  misfortune  and  a  bad  sign  for  the  Church  when 
the  saints  are  outside !  For  religion  cannot  be  put 
into  any  radical  or  conservative  pigeon-hole.  Said 
Ta}rlor,  the  Bethel  preacher,  "I  own  part  of  Boston 
Common,  and  I  will  never  tell  which  part  it  is  !  "  It  is 
the  noble  universal  soul  in  Jesus  by  which  we  are  re 
deemed,  and  he  saves  us  less  by  his  blood  as  he  sheds 
it  than  as  it  runs  in  his  veins.  When  did  he  ever  make 
of  civil  and  religious  duty  two  things  ?  He  could  do  it 
no  more  than  Solomon  could  divide  asunder  the  living 
child.  He  refers  us  for  judgment  to  that  spirit  which 
has  an  inlet  to  every  heart.  The  philosophy  of  utility 
and  experience  would  say,  Act  on  the  consent  of  the 
competent  and  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number,  —  a  rule  which  would  stop  procedure  and  block 
the  way  till  we  should  ascertain  what  is  the  greatest  good 
and  who  are  the  competent !  We  must  go  to  "  the 
Holy  Ghost  the  Comforter ; "  else  we  are  put  upon  an 
inclined  plane  or  sliding-scale  of  personalities,  —  first 
Jesus,  then  the  Virgin,  next  her  mother,  whose  names 
are  called,  whose  bones  are  kept,  and  whose  pra}'ers  are 
invoked,  but  whose  worship  lets  us  down  from  all  our 
reaching  up  to  the  Supreme.  Let  us  beware  what  we 
adore!  "  My  name  will  I  not  give  to  another."  The 
name  of  God  is  not  in  our  Constitution.  But  it  is  in  a 
more  venerable  instrument  that  has  needed  no  amend 
ments,  the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  and  no  rose, 
lity,  eagle,  lion,  or  liberty  and  union,  for  a  war-cr}r  or  in 
the  blazonry  of  banners,  can  so  shine  or  sound  !  What 
our  agreement  consists  in  all  may  feel,  but  none  can 
define.  It  is  in  a  glance  ;  for  who  can  tell  how  far, 


286  PRINCIPLES. 

even  into  heaven,  a  look  may  go?  It  is  in  a  tone  ;  for 
there  are  accents  of  the  human  voice  which  the  Sera 
phim  must  overhear.  It  is  in  a  smile ;  for  there  are 
smiles  that  include  the  universe  ! 

Jesus  the  Christ  is  the  chosen  name,  because  he  that 
bore  it  resisted  the  whole  evil  tendency  that  was  down 
ward  in  the  gravitation  of  mankind.  What  a  memory 
that  name  means,  still  pungent  and  sweet !  The  cradle 
takes  it  to  rock  the  new-born  babe  with,  and  the  bier 
catches  it  in  the  procession  to  the  tomb.  It  pierced 
into  the  catacombs  of  the  first  disciples,  and  it  hangs 
around  uncounted  graveyards  that  hold  the  once  throb 
bing  dust.  It  is  a  sign  that  what  in  us  once  aspired 
shall  ascend  again,  lie  low  as  it  may  now.  It  desig 
nates  nothing  carnal  but  what  is  latent  in  our  bosom 
waiting  to  be  awaked. 

If  politics  be  the  art  of  getting  along  together,  in  ruling 
a  city  and  composing  civil  strife,  it  has,  to  order  and 
harmonize  our  faculties,  another  interior  sphere ;  and 
there  is  a  wider  reach  than  Paul  suspected  in  his  own 
words  when  he  besought  the  Corinthians  to  be  recon 
ciled  to  God.  But  Bishop  Butler  raised  a  new  question 
in  charging  on  nature  the  same  difficulties  that  exist  in 
revelation  ;  for  the  moral  sense  finds  it  hard  to  stomach 
how  much  that  providentially  occurs  !  No  moral  stand 
ard  can  cover  the  whole  ground,  as  may  be  shown 
in  a  single  flagrant  illustration.  Dr.  Channing,  whose 
religion  was  a  total  morality  as  much  as  any  other 
man's,  has  in  his  most  famous  paper  well  arraigned 
Napoleon  for  his  selfish  ambition  and  man}'  other  im 
perial  faults.  But  Channing  does  not  recognize  the 
import  of  that  piece  of  nature,  that  so  exceptional  and 


POLITICS.  287 

phenomenal  man,  hewn  by  circumstances  out  of  the 
rock  of  reality,  whom  we  call  Bonaparte,  —  not  so 
much  Emperor  of  France  as  dominator  of  the  world ! 
There  was  a  daimonic  as  well  as  voluntary  portion  of 
his  soul.  He  had  a  star,  although  it  was  not  the  one 
that  led  to  Bethlehem.  He  was  the  child  of  destiny, 
spoiled  child  of  fortune  though  he  became.  He  rode 
for  a  while  in  that  chariot  of  the  Lord,  under  whose 
wheels  at  last  he  fell.  His  ablest  critic  has  not  an 
appreciable  fraction  of  his  enormous  weight.  For  this 
was  the  one  man  who  could  seize  the  wild  horses  of 
anarchy  by  the  rein,  who  could  curb  and  check  revolu 
tionary  excess,  and  say,  "  Gentlemen,  come  to  order," 
in  that  chaos  of  blood  and  fire  into  which  a  nation  was 
cast.  Aught  corrupt  afterwards  in  his  motives  or  insin 
cere  in  his  speech  Heaven  will  compensate  and  men 
must  condemn.  But  how  wrong  and  narrow  wholly 
to  cover  and  cancel  anybody's  services  with  his  sins ! 
His  sins  were  indeed  grave,  but  his  services  were 
immense,  although  not  even  a  clerical  eulogist,  like 
Abbott,  his  American  admirer  and  biographer,  can 
persuade  us  to  make  a  Sunday-school  book  of  the 
annals  of  his  reign.  The  statesman  he  was  is  shown 
b}T  his  word  in  the  civil  code,  and  the  soldier  by  his 
hand  on  the  sword.  This  modern  mob-hater  and  foe 
of  lawlessness,  hurling  at  disorder  his  deathty  dart, 
was,  as.  much  as  Attila,  at  least  the  scourge  of  God ; 
and  in  some  dark  fashion  he  too  was  an  angel  from  the 
sky.  Out  of  its  cloud  leaped  this  thunderbolt  of  war. 
Did  not  this  armed  head  of  democrac}'  prepare  for  the 
republic  of  to-day?  He  was  the  savior,  if  alternately 
the  oppressor,  of  France.  This  solid  and  subtle*  Cor- 


288  PRINCIPLES. 

sican  was  a  consummate  actor,  as  he  made  the  costly 
vase  he  shivered  to  pieces  on  the  floor  and  the  hat 
he  tossed  into  the  corner  of  the  room,  in  affected  pas 
sion  or  actual  rage,  a  language  to  tell  his  scorn  and 
his  resolve.  "  In  comparison  with  my  purpose  what," 
he  asked,  "  are  a  million  of  men?"  Battle  against  old 
authority  was  his  mission  ;  his  unparalleled  magnetism 
of  his  troops  was  his  certificate  ;  and  he  wanted  to  meet 
Scipio  and  the  other  great  generals  on  the  other  side 
of  the  grave,  although  he  said  with  a  smile,  "  Such  an 
assembly  might  even  there  occasion  some  alarm ! " 
Who  will  pronounce  the  verdict  for  such  a  man  or  an 
ticipate  the  award  ?  Who  can  deny  the  use  Providence 
had  for  movements  of  which  he  was  the  centre  ?  He 
was  a  strange  religionist !  Of  all  tributes  to  Jesus 
Christ  his,  in  conversation  with  General  Bertrand,  is 
the  most  striking.  Men  have  never  known  what  to 
do  with  this  prodigy  of  power,-  and  perhaps  angels 
do  not !  He  cannot  quite  be  subjected  to  weight  and 
measure  by  any  yet  invented  ethical  yardsticks  or 
scales.  The  size  of  him  is  so  monstrous,  and  the 
conflict  of  good  and  evil  in  him  so  dire ;  his  anger 
was  so  dreadful,  and  he  had  a  winsomeness  so  com 
plete,  that  into  no  crucible  for  our  analysis  will  he 
readily  go.  Of  downright  meanness  our  judgment  can 
easily  dispose.  But  greatness  defies  us  by  being,  while 
it  lasts,  simple  and  one.  Charlemagne  or  the  Russian 
Peter  composing  nations,  Luther  and  Sak}*a  Mouni  re 
forming  faith,  and  Shakspeare  and  Goethe  setting  a 
language  with  gems,  before  which  all  in  the  mine  turn 
pale,  are  alike  sent  of  God,  and  not  to  be  damned  for 
a  defect,  more  than  a  gun-ship  should  be  for  a  knot  in 


POLITICS.  289 

her  bulwarks  or  a  California  pine  for  a  worm  in  its 
bark.  Mohammed  was  the  same  man  in  the  closet  or 
in  the  field.  Did  not  Jesus  for  a  moment  think  of  re 
sorting  to  arms?  Was  not  Washington  as  good  as 
William  Penn?  Does  Seward  the  diplomat  rank  the 
warrior  Grant?  The  circumstance  does  not  signify  so 
much  as  the  aim.  In  strife  or  in  peace  duty  is  all. 

The  French  historian,  Nisard,  sa}Ts  Csesar  had  charm. 
How  else  explain  Napoleon's  hold  on  his  men,  so  great 
that  when  the  Pope,  being  a  prisoner  in  Paris,  adjured 
the  sentinel  to  let  him  pass,  the  answer,  with  presented 
bayonet,  was.  "If  it  were  the  body  of  our  Lord  that 
would  go  out  here,  I  should  run  it  through.  I  have 
been  in  many  a  bloody  battle  with  my  master,  and  ex 
pect  to  have  to  go  through  hell  for  him  yet ! "  It  is 
difficult  to  believe  there  was  no  heart  in  one  to  whom 
his  soldiers  were  so  attached  !  Yet  he  told  Tallej'rand, 
when  friends  had  deceased,  "I  have  no  time  to  occupy 
myself  with  the  dead."  This  sa}Ting  makes  one  remember 
another  and  sacred  sentence  from  which  it  would  almost 
seem  to  have  been  borrowed.  When  the  excuse  of  a 
father's  funeral  was  offered  for  not  following  Jesus,  he 
replied,  "Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead."  "We  can 
not  judge  him,  he  is  too  great,"  said  Thackeray  of 
Goethe.  We  cannot  judge  any  one.  We  cannot  apply 
the  moral  law  to  the  whole  of  the  humblest  life ;  and 
our  inability  is  not  lessened  by  the  immensity  of  the 
scale  on  which  humanity  acts.  But  such  cases  and 
considerations  show  out  of  how  many  still  jarring  ele 
ments  the  reconciliation,  proposed  in  all  just  politics, 
must  be  brought  to  pass.  Politics  is  morality  not  of 
a  private  person,  but  of  the  multitude,  as  made  parts 


290  PRINCIPLES. 

of  each  other  by  an  organic  law.  It  is  fair  dealing  of 
fellow-men  together  in  complicated  ties.  It  is  equity  in 
the  web  of  relations,  and  it  is  the  weaving  into  beauty 
of  all  our  bonds.  It  should  be  as  worthy  a  title  as  the 
grander  one,  statesmanship,  and  it  reaches  more  widely. 
Only  the  base  tricks  of  politicians  have  given  it  a  bad 
name. 

The  real  atonement,  which  is  the  object  alike  of  re 
ligious  revelation  and  of  the  civil  law,  is  in  the  faculties 
and  desires  that  so  often  pull  diverse  ways  in  our  own 
minds  ;  and  never  man  lived  more  aware  than  was  the 
Master  of  Christians  how  vast  is  the  work  of  this  rec 
onciliation  within.  His  fine  feelings,  both  in  and  out 
of  the  Church,  have  been  extolled  at  the  expense  of  his 
understanding,  because,  in  order  to  be  understood,  he 
was  obliged  to  use  the  language,  with  some  of  its  erro 
neous  implications,  of  his  country  and  his  time.  There 
may  have  been  defects  in  his  theory,  or  mistakes  in  his 
philosophy,  of  the  universe.  Has  the  sphinx  spoken  to 
us  so  that  we  construe  the  riddle  surely  aright?  His 
answers  are  the  best  rendered  yet ;  and  they  show 
that  the  ideas  in  his  head  were  as  lofty  as  the  Divine 
love  was  deep  in  his  heart.  But  of  all  traits  in  his  dis 
ciples  sincerity  is  the  first.  John  Ruskin  says  that ' '  the 
oath  of  a  thief  or  street- walker  is  in  the  eye  of  God 
as  sinless  as  a  hawk's  cry  or  a  gnat's  murmur,  com 
pared  with  that  of  the  responses  in  the  church-service 
of  the  usurer  and  adulterer."  If  by  civil  or  ecclesias 
tical  politics  be  meant  a  form,  made  empty,  mechanical, 
and  hypocritical  in  order  to  be  catholic  and  include 
all  persons,  every  sacred  name  is  blasphemed  and 
profaned.  The  Christian  general  in  command  of  the 


POLITICS.  291 

forces  in  the  Pine-tree  State,  who,  being  a  soldier, 
did  not  draw  but  sheathed  the  sword,  a  warrior  who 
was  a  reconciler,  a  man  of  battle  who  kept  the  peace, 
and  a  hero  who  stood  in  the  breach  between  a  com 
monwealth  and  anarchy,  declining  to  be  superseded 
and  relieved  of  his  charge  by  a  pretending  chief-magis 
trate,  whose  authority  had  no  warrant  of  constitution 
and  law,  is  worthy  of  the  highest  trust  any  people 
could  bestow. 


292  PRINCIPLES. 


XI. 
PLAY. 

THERE  is  a  mental  state  in  which  motion  and  rest 
are  the  same,  as  an  eagle  at  once  floats  on  and 
flies  through  the  sky,  buoyed  up  while  it  ascends.  It  is 
absence  of  obstruction  before  the  presence  of  uncon 
scious  strength.  The  sport  of  children  is  an  escape 
from  them  of  that  energy  which  is  painful  if  confined. 
When  David  tells  Joab  to  ' '  pla}T  the  men  "  against  the 
S}'rians  and  Ammonites,  what  does  he  mean  but  that 
men  fighting  for  home  and  native  land  may  so  lay  all 
private  will  on  the  altar,  and  be  so  kindled  with  courage 
from  its  live  coals,  that  even  their  dreadful  deeds  are 
sportive  and  inspired.  Play  is  force  without  effort,  as 
in  an  engine  or  fountain.  Men  work  at  the  grindstone 
or  pump ;  but  the  musician  plays  on  an  instrument  if, 
while  he  addresses  himself  to  his  performance,  all  ob 
stacles  vanish,  and  the  theme  performs  itself.  Just  in 
proportion  as  the  artist  works  he  is  weak,  and  his  ex 
hibition  is  "  a  labored  affair."  Beasts  and  birds  play. 
It  is  play  for  a  horse  to  slip  his  halter,  to  run  from  his 
stall,  and  as  he  capers  and  careers  over  the  ground  to 
revert  from  the  bondage  of  his  harness  to  the  infancy 
of  his  race.  The  kitten  plays  with  its  tail,  and  its 
mother  with  the  mouse  ;  and  kids  and  calves  have  their 
social  gambols  and  games.  In  what  waltzes  or  round 


PLAY.  293 

dances,  making  a  ballroom  of  the  atmosphere,  the  sum 
mer  insects  whirl !  With  what  unmistakable  courtesy 
the  swallows,  like  partners,  meet  or  take  their  leave ! 
Even  fishes  toil  and  travail  little  for  subsistence.  They 
have  much  transport  with  their  fins.  In  human  beings, 
while  virtue  exerts  itself,  grace  plays.  What  is  the 
leaping  of  the  fish,  in  uncontainable  exultation,  out 
of  the  water  but  the  beginning  and  figure  of  the  spirit's 
soaring  into  heaven? 

We  speak  of  God's  works  ;  but  the  self-representing 
Will  into  which  Schopenhauer  would  reduce  the  world's 
perpetual  push  must  be  so  successful  in  accomplish 
ment  as  to  be  unconscious  of  attempt.  God  wins  no 
victoiy,  for  he  has  no  foe.  Do  we  play  with  the  cue  on 
the  billiard-table?  What  but  easy  play  is  his  tossing 
of  enormous  balls  in  ethereal  air? 

Play  is  plenty  of  resource,  be  it  spent  in  the  smooth 
wards  of  a  lock,  the  endless  somersaults  with  puffs  of 
pleasure  of  the  porpoises,  or  of  the  whales,  who  throw 
in  the  spouting  as  an  elegance  of  the  profession  as  they 
come  to  the  surface  to  breathe.  These  creatures  say  that 
bare  subsistence  is  not  enough  without  a  vital  overplus 
for  merriment  and  fun.  It  is  a  play  of  the  wild  waves 
themselves  which  the  poet  sings.  In  all  mechanism  the 
object  is  fit  movement  without  rub  or  noise,  as  the  grass 
grows,  and  the  air  clasps  us",  and  the  waters  ebb  and 
flow.  The  wood  is  shaven,  the  iron  and  steel  filed, 
and  the  strap  drawn  to  suit  the  grooving  in  the  wheel. 
But  our  art  goes  to  Nature  to  school.  We  copy  her 
centres  of  motion  in  the  jewelled  pivots  of  a  watch,  of 
the  play  of  whose  works  we  speak ;  and  the  soul  must 
be  automatic  or  self-moved  before  morality  is  complete. 


294  PRINCIPLES. 

Paul's  mission  was  to  deliver  his  countrymen  from  ' '  the 
works  of  the  law."  Ceremonial  law  we  say  in  our 
gloss,  }~et  it  was  a  law  into  whose  obedience  their  con 
science  went  as  much  as  ours  does  into  the  actions  and 
customs  that  discharge  our  ethical  heat.  But  grace 
surpasses  all  painstaking.  It  cannot  be  put  aside  or 
abandon  itself.  "For  his  bo&nt}*  it  had  no  winter  in 
it ; "  and  the  sons  of  God  are  manifest  in  a  goodness 
that  abounds.  "  Oil  is  in  their  vessels  with  their 
lamps."  Heaven  above  is  not  labor,  but  play.  We 
figure  the  angels  in  choirs  and  with  their  "  chorus  on 
high." 

What  is  love  but  the  heart's  play?  If  you  find  it 
hard  work  to  love  us,  we  pray  you  not  to  love  us  at 
all !  It  is  enough  to  have  a  force-pump  in  the  house, 
but  feeling  finds  its  own  level,  and  must  be  under  no 
restraint.  It  is  the  pressure  itself  !  We  say  ironically 
of  one  who  is  obliged  to  make  much  preparation  for 
any  occasion  that  he  is  "  getting  up  the  steam ; "  but 
love  is  eloquence.  What  but  the  magnet  and  steel  and 
needle  to  the  pole  are  our  favorite  illustrations  of  friend 
ship  that  is  real  and  sincere  ?  Lovers  fry  to  each  other's 
embrace.  The  benevolent  man  is  nourished  by  others' 
needs.  If  the  destitute  did  not  ask,  charit}'  would  die. 
Hunger  and  nakedness  and  all  poverty  and  ignorance 
are  its  field,  without  which  it  were  smothered  in  its  own 
excess.  A  locomotive  does  not  object  to  the  track,  and 
good  affections  are  always  in  running  order.  Love  is 
the  paj'ing  and  receiving  teller  alike  in  God's  bank.  In 
some  ministry  at  large  is  the  benefactor  or  beneficiary  to 
be  congratulated  most  ?  As  the  courser  is  breathed  on 
the  course,  so  goodness  runs  and  is  not  weary  ;  and  the 


PLAY.  295 

orthodox  doctrine  is  true,  that  there  is  no  merit  in  the 
best  works. 

But  is  not  life  full  of  hard  tasks,  as  Harriet  Marti- 
neau's  childish  maxim  was,  —  "Duty  first  and  pleasure 
afterwards  "  ?  We  may  .begin  with  application  and  pro 
ceed  to  agony  ;  but  we  end  in  a  composure,  which  is  rap 
ture  too.  It  is  like  the  process  of  filling  a  balloon  which 
sways  awkwardly  and  without  balance  on  the  ground, 
not  knowing  for  a  time  what  to  do.  But  it  rights  itself 
more  and  more  as  the  finer  element  which  is  to  be  its 
stay  fills  its  hungry  interior  and  presses  out  its  silken 
sides.  At  length  it  tugs  at  and  spurns  the  cords  that 
confine  it  to  the  earth,  waiting  only  till  they  be  cut 
for  it  to  soar,  and  become  part  of  the  airy  current  on 
which  it  is  borne.  Duty  is  the  wish  of  the  soul  raised 
to  the  highest  power,  and  rushing  to  pay  what  it  owes, 
as  the  honest  man  rejoices  less  in  making  money  than 
in  pa}'ing  his  debts.  Nor  is  it  trivial  obligations  alone 
that  mostly  thrill  and  recreate  the  mind.  A  tragedy, 
"Othello"  or  "Macbeth,"  on  the  stage  is  still  a  play. 
So  are  dire  encounters  in  real  life.  When,  in  Nelson's 
phrase,  England  expected  ever}*  man  to  do  his  duty,  at 
Aboukir  or  Trafalgar,  was  it  not  beauty  too  to  every 
man  ?  When  the  Federals  and  Confederates  exchanged 
rations,  fruit,  or  tobacco  jocosety  across  the  lines,  or 
when  at  the  gates  of  Paris  a  Uhlan  and  a  French  sol 
dier  smiled  on  each  other,  after  the  deadly  thrust  and 
grip,  just  before  the}7  both  died,  were  they  not  quite  aware 
it  was  not  hatred,  but  a  game?  At  the  playhouse  our 
great  President  met  his  doom,  but  in  what  a  theatre  he 
had  been  chief  character  outside  !  He  would  have  been 
capable  of  a  good-natured  jest  at  his  assassin's  expense, 


296  PRINCIPLES. 

like  Thomas  More  when  he  told  the  executioner  to  spare 
his  long  beard,  as  "  that  at  least  had  committed  no 
treason."  John  Brown,  being  dragged  in  the  cart  to 
the  gallows,  amazes  and  amuses  the  driver  by  light- 
hearted  talk  on  the  fine  scenery  in  whose  neighborhood 
they  passed.  Of  what  was  this  modern  Judas  Macca- 
bseus  with  his  Hebrew  zeal  thinking,  as  the  wheels  of  the 
van  that  held  him  rattled  on?  But  how  joyfully  he  had 
acted  his  part  at  the  difficult  post  where,  by  a  power 
that  would  not  be  gainsaid,  he  had  been  set ;  while  a 
solace  from  a  horizon  more  glorious  than  the  Virginia 
hills  beamed  on  his  believing  soul,  so  shortly  by  the 
great  Manager  to  be  released  from  its  blessed  role,  and 
refreshed.  In  him  body  and  mind  had  constitution 
ally  a  certain  noble  sway  and  elastic  tread,  and  he  had 
well  and  often  in  his  heart's  chambers  practised  and 
rehearsed  what  he  did  such  justice  to  in  the  eyes 
of  mankind.  It  was  a  serious  sort  of  play.  It  is 
not  the  grim  Puritan  but  the  good-natured  man  that 
is  most  in  earnest.  The  true  hero  is  less  grave  than 
gay.  He  is  Bayard  and  Sidney  rather  than  John  Bal- 
four  of  Burley.  When  on  the  country-road  a  sweet 
fragrance  of  flowers  is  wafted  from  the  yard,  we  feel 
that  generosity  with  love  of  beauty,  not  selfish  moiling, 
lives  in  the  house  ;  and  the  atmosphere  of  greatness  is 
always  sweet. 

Jesus  himself  was  an  actor  in  the  same  sense.  A 
modern  school  of  theologians  speaks  of  the  crucifixion 
not  as  a  vicarious  bloody  atonement,  but  a  dramatic  ex 
hibition  of  God's  horror  of  sin  ;  and  the  ancient  Docetae 
thought  Calvary  was  but  a  show  of  suffering.  There 
was  no  real  expiring  at  Golgotha.  The  deathless  soul 


PLAY.  297 

enacted  the  whole  scene,  and  made  room  for  all  the 
dramatis  persona  in  one  breast.  Christ  must  have 
looked  out  of  his  murderers'  eyes  on  himself  when  he 
based  his  prayer  for  their  pardon  on  their  ignorance  of 
their  deed.  He  was  the  disciple  whom  he  made  a  son 
to  his  own  mother  instead  of  himself  ;  and  he  was  the 
mother  to  whom  he  knew  what  it  was  to  give  a  son. 
Yet  he  left  not  his  own  station  on  the  nails  that  held 
him  against  the  tree.  He  insisted  on  tasting  the  last 
drop  of  penal  anguish  from  banded  Judsea  and  Rome. 
He  reftised  to  deaden  one  pang  with  the  wonted  compli 
ment  of  vinegar  and  ni3Trrh. 

Most  scholars  and  critics  now  agree  that  the  temp 
tation  recorded  by  the  Evangelist  was  no  outward  fact 
arranged  by  a  visible  devil  with  the  Lord,  but  that  it 
transpired  in  his  own  bosom,  as  ambition,  appetite,  os 
tentation,  spread  the  lures  which  he  instantly  declined  to 
follow,  and  the  snares  in  which  he  could  not  be  caught. 
An  imaginative  mind  of  such  a  poet  of  God  as  Christ 
was  would  lay  out  the  various  careers  he  might  have 
the  option  to  pursue.  But  the  stones  to  be  made  bread, 
the  pinnacle  of  the  temple,  and  the  exceeding  high 
mountain  displaying  all  the  glories  of  the  world,  were 
but  vision  and  magnificent  dream  of  real  heights  and 
possible  degradations,  not  alone  of  fancy,  but  of  the 
intellectual  faculty  and  moral  sense,  for  a  picture  to 
hang  for  ever  in  the  galleries  of  time  ! 

When  the  natural  elements  are  at  their  best,  and 
health  is  in  every  dew-drop,  and  the  morning  breeze 
moves  gentl}7  with  the  shining  of  the  unclouded  sun, 
then  there  is  a  sparkle  on  the  sea.  So  there  is  hilar 
ity  in  the  man  who  is  inwardly  well.  He  is  like  the 


298  PRINCIPLES. 

sentinel  I  heard  pace  on  a  summer  night  in  Santa  Cruz, 
and  sing,  "All  is  serene."  When  the  dwelling  is  in 
order,  the  children  can  play !  Our  affections  will  play, 
if  they  exist.  The  bounty  is  not  acceptable  which  we 
have  to  hoist  up  or  hesitate  about.  As  the  experts 
making  the  best  time  in  the  regatta  do  not  spurt  at  the 
oar,  but  with  even  breath  from  the  rowlocks  pull,  in 
their  long  and  almost  noiseless  sweep,  so  the  race  of 
goodness  is  not  turbulent  and  fretful,  but  constant  and 
smooth  ;  and  our  eulogy  on  an}7  marvellous  feat  is  that 
it  was  done  in  sport,  —  there  being  more  where  that 
came  from,  and  plenty  to  spare  !  It  was  after  Delilah 
had  robbed  Samson  of  his  hair  that  the  Philistines  seized 
and  brought  him  to  Gaza,  and  put  out  his  eyes,  and 
made  him  sweat  and  grind.  Ability  is  silent,  and  de 
bility  is  loud. 

Genius  or  character  has  its  programme  long  ago 
made  out  in  the  skies.  When  a  great  performer  pro 
fessed  he  was  unhappy,  with  only  moments  of  bliss  and 
months  of  torture,  from  something  beside  his  inspira 
tion  his  woe  must  have  come  !  While  we  do  the  bidding 
and  run  on  the  errand  we  are  glad,  and  nothing  can  be 
out  of  joint.  Before  the  breath  of  God,  if  it  come,  I 
am  a  projectile  like  a  cannon-ball,  which  does  the  exe 
cution  and  does  not  question  the  aim.  Hence  the 
stamp  of  necessity  in  the  result.  u  As  well,"  says 
Coleridge,  "  push  a  brick  out  of  the  solid  cemented 
wall  as  a  word  out  of  Shakspeare's  line  ; "  and  a  mor 
tar  more  firm  holds  edges  finer  hewn  in  even-  true  life. 
Its  most  dismal  passages  are  like  pits  the  day  is  let 
into,  or  graves  where  resurrections  have  taken  place. 

There  are  shadows  on  the  playground,  and  we  may 


PLAY. 


299 


as  well  object  to  the  landscape  as  to  the  just  report  of 
it  the  artist  makes.  How  can  he  who  is  too  dainty  to 
listen  to  the  tale  endure  to  survey  the  actual  human 
scene?  If  to  "  purify  by  pity  and  terror"  be  the  busi 
ness  of  the  muse,  then  by  avoiding  the  process  we 
shall  miss  the  result.  We  must  have  the  labor  and 
the  pain  that  we  may  have  the  play.  We  would  cheer 
fully  make  room,  though  it  should  take  the  whole 
planet,  for  a  patient  endurance  or  an  heroic  deed. 
We  are  in  an  army ;  and  what  is  righteousness  but  not 
breaking  the  ranks?  As  there  is  a  prelude  for  the 
orchestra  and  a  rehearsal  for  the  stage,  so  work  must 
prepare  always  for  play.  How  the  fingers  of  the  pia 
nist  fly  over  the  keys,  and  are  no  longer  aware  of  the 
motions  and  intervals  which  at  first  were  compassed 
with  such  toil  and  drill !  What  dexterity  in  his  compo 
sition  the  experienced  type-setter  displays,  and  in  what 
artless,  charming  order  the  accomplished  orator's  sen 
tences  flow !  By  steps  of  equal  care  and  diligence 
must  we  mount  to  4he  Zion  where  the  singers  and 
players  are.  As  you  behold  the  ocean  rolling  afar  from 
the  summit  of  the  White  Hills  or  the  Alps,  so  the  as 
cent  of  principles  is  the  condition  of  spiritual  sight. 
Michael  Angelo  toiled  slowly  when  he  began ;  but  the 
marble  chips  flew  from  his  chisel  at  last. 

Fine  manners  also  are  a  certain  play  or  overplus  of 
the  heart,  as  a  feast  is  more  than  enough  to  eat  and 
drink.  What  but  the  unfolding  of  an  at  first  rude  and 
savage  deportment  once  in  the  Greek  language  turned 
the  sense  of  a  word  from  stranger  to  guest?  Nature 
is  always  teaching  the  lesson  of  this  ' '  touch  beyond  " 
and  something  over.  So  to  every  visitor  we  give  our 


300  PRINCIPLES. 

best,  withholding  it  in  his  favor  from  the  members  of 
our  household  and  from  ourselves.  We  make  whoever 
comes  welcome  to  the  largest  room,  to  the  most  savory 
morsel,  the  window  of  best  prospect,  the  most  delightful 
drive,  and  complete  entertainment  every  way.  Our  en 
joyment  reaches  its  highest  pitch  in  his.  Barbarism 
formerly  was  a  rough  repulse  or  a  bloody  assault,  as  of 
naked  Otaheitans  or  murderous  Malays.  It  now  con 
sists  in  a  stinted  hospitality  or  a  cool  and  scant}'  salute  ! 
From  the  Divine  overflow  we  get  our  lesson.  God's 
work  everywhere  rises  or  runs  into  play.  The  winds 
whistle  and  the  waves  dance.  In  the  Greek  poetry  the 
billows  have  a  multitudinous  laugh.  There  is  no  strain 
or  falling  short  in  any  natural  supply,  but  exulting  suffi 
ciency,  more  oxygen  than  we  can  breathe,  and  more 
water  than  we  need  to  quench  our  thirst.  The  sun  is 
no  lantern  or  hand-lamp,  just  enabling  us  to  find  our 
way  and  get  about.  We  cannot  use  a  tithe  of  his  rays, 
while  the  Word  of  the  Lord  is  a  lamp  to  our  feet. 

Who  sa}'S  that  Nature  is  sad  ?  *  Only  an  echo  is  her 
minor  key !  We  give  her  the  pitch  of  the  tune.  If 
she  sings  a  dirge,  it  is  her  courtesy  to  our  grief,  and  no 
sorrow  brooding  in  her  own  breast.  A  band  of  music 
can  make  the  same  instruments  gay  or  doleful.  If  the 
refrain  in  Nature  be  a  moan,  it  is  only  that  our  mis 
fortune  or  bereavement  takes  hold  of  her  pipes  and 
strings.  She  can  and  would  be  fair  and  merry  with 
us  in  her  great  picture-gallery  and  concert-hall !  Her 
charm,  in  Wordsworth's  apostrophe,  robs  conscience 
of  its  sting,  — 

"  Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds, 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads." 


PLAY.  301 

Every  blossom  is  her  superfluity.  With  what  odors  she 
greets  us  as  we  walk  in  the  fields  and  the  woods  !  The 
crowded  petals  of  cultivation  cannot  vie  with  the  single 
row  in  the  wild  rose,  so  lithe  and  sweet.  Every  fruit- 
tree  is  a  basket  of  flowers  first.  How  the  breeze 
waves  the  grass  and  the  grain  to  nod,  and  in  sham  fight 
brandish  their  spears  !  Why  has  the  wheat,  beside  the 
kernel,  its  green  and  3'ellow  bud  and  bloom?  Where 
fore  the  spindling  and  the  silk  tassels  of  the  corn,  but 
for  some  such  reason  as  we  have  tents  and  arbors  and 
awnings  and  carpets  to  give  our  politeness  full  course  ? 
The  harvest  smiles  on  us  before  it  feeds.  There  is  a 
hum  and  murmur  of  promise  in  the  air  from  the  grow 
ing  crops.  Whoever  noticed  the  sailing  of  clouds  in 
the  sky  and  the  cloud-shadows  over  the  "forest-edges 
and  along  the  mountain-sides,  or  the  scores  of  diverse 
crystals  in  the  snow,  but  felt  the  Divine  solicitude  that 
we  might  be  pleased?  Flowering  introduces  and  is 
essential  to  fruit.  The  potato,  that  lowly  esculent, 
would  not  thrive  for  us  under  ground  but  that  it  blos 
soms  above.  The  surly  curmudgeons  and  conceited 
wiseacres  fall  below  this  ground-apple,  as  it  is  called 
by  the  French.  The  landscape  laughs  at  the  dignity 
with  which  some  proud  citizen  marches  by,  his  eye 
fixed  on  a  distant  planet,  and  having  to  gyrate  like  a 
telescope  to  bring  into  its  focus  objects  so  small  and 
near  as  his  fellow-men.  What  an  icy  response  of  far- 
off  recognition  he  sends  to  your  cordial  good-morning 
and  to  3'our  half-wasted  bow !  But  fine  manners  pla}^ 
freety  as  the  rippling  folds  of  a  streamer  from  its  staff. 
You  are  not  polite  if  you  try  to  be  so !  Genuine 
courtesy  is  the  escape  of  your  love  in  every  trifle,  like 


302  PRINCIPLES. 

a  whiff  of  the  wind,  the  glitter  of  the  deep  or  of  drops 
of  dew,  the  aroma  that  fills  the  chamber  from  a  hidden 
source.  There  are  persons  whose  simple  and  uncon 
scious  wa}'s  lay  on  us  a  strange  spell.  The  atmosphere 
of  others  repels.  When  I  lamented  the  mendacity  of 
a  certain  person,  the  reply  was,  "It  is  not  the  lying 
that  troubles  me,  for  that  I  can  defend  myself  against ; 
it  is  the  other  disagreeable  qualities."  The  manners  of 
some  people  are  a  centrifugal  force.  Every  material 
bod}'  exudes  its  own  ' '  airs  from  heaven  or  blasts  from 
hell."  Personal  attraction  or  revulsion  is  a  nryster}'  and 
foreordination  before  the  founding  of  the  world. 

"  Say  when  in  lapsed  ages  I  knew  thee  of  old  ; 
And  what  was  the  service  for  which  I  was  sold  ?  " 

Happy  is  it  if  any  two  persons  can  keep  their  footing 
together,  and  be  a  binary  star. 

Delicate  sensibility  is  the  condition  of  perfect  man 
ners.  Edison's  apparatus  feels  the  star  before  it  is 
seen  ;  and  a  quiver  of  feeling  gauges  whatever  person 
ality  sweeps  into  our  field  of  view.  In  naval  architec 
ture"  the  safet}'  is  in  a  structure  most  quick  and  buoyant 
to  mind  the  swell  of  the  sea.  The  Great  Eastern  is 
demoralized  like  a  cast  horse  in  the  stable,  and  thrown 
on  her  beam-ends.  She  would  not  "  stoop  to  conquer," 
and  the  waves,  whose  stoop  no  quadrant  or  chart  can 
reckon,  hustled  her  into  the  trough  of  the  sea ;  while 
the  little  Gloucester  dory  and  the  Nautilus  skiff  from 
New  York  cross  the  Atlantic,  defying  whirlwind  and 
storm.  The  deference  to  each  other  of  persons  as  they 
pass,  as  well  as  careering  ships,  is,  however,  no  abject 
submission,  but  reference  to  the  centre  of  all. 


PLAY.  303 

We  do  with  ease  what  we  do  with  our  whole  heart. 
That  is  feeble  which  just  rubs  and  goes.  There  must 
be  no  wax  if  the  wheel  in  its  box  or  over  its  pivot  is  to 
be  swift.  Devotion  at  its  acme  rises  and  leaps  and 
sings  as  in  Miriam  with  her  timbrel  at  the  Ked  Sea,  and 
in  David  before  the  ark,  in  Madame  Guyon  whose  feet, 
when  the  passion  of  piety  is  on  her,  can  scarce  touch 
the  ground,  and  in  all  the  levitation  and  ardor  of  the 
saints,  which  signifies  more  than  gravity  and  the  long 
or  sour  face.  How  the  hard  prayer,  more  than  the 
dull  sermon,  afflicts  a  congregation,  and  is  like  the 
asses'  chewing  of  thistles,  which  we  are  impatient  to 
stop !  Only  when  the  Godhead  is  an  element  which 
the  minister  bears  us  into,  as  a  horse  runs,  the  bird 
flies,  or  a  fish  swims,  can  his  fellow-worshippers  be  raised 
or  led.  But  the  public  act  of  prayer  is  often  a  difficult 
scramble  in  the  Congregational  order,  as  it  is  with  the 
Episcopal  a  perfunctory  form.  A  liturgy  is  convenient 
where  the  spirit  does  not  move !  But  it  contains  not 
only  the  mournful  confession  which  the  "  miserable  sin 
ners  "  make ;  it  admits  no  path  to  heaven  but  the  old 
ancestral  road  with  all  its  unmended  ruts.  If  the  re 
sponses  have  no  life  in  them,  then  the  decorous  phrases 
of  the  Common  Prayer  are  shamed  by  the  swarm  and 
hum  of  the  Florida  negroes  over  their  pine  sanctuary 
floor. 

No  instituted  religion  can  furnish  all  the  play  we 
need.  Poet,  story-teller,  artist,  and  actor  are  auxil 
iaries  for  the  unfinished  business  of  the  priest ;  and 
there  is  in  their  truth  to  their  several  callings  as  much 
religion  as  in  any  ritual  he  can  rehearse.  It  was  a 
clerg3*man,  rich  in  culture  as  broad  in  love,  and  de- 


304  PRINCIPLES. 

voted  to  the  American  nation  when  life  and  liberty  were 
the  stakes  for  which  with  ball  and  ba3T>net  it  played, 
who  first  among  us  effectually  confronted  superstitious 
prejudice  with  a  masterly  defence  of  the  stage.  Is  the 
church  sacred  and  the  theatre  profane?  The  pulpit- 
curtain  in  itself  is  no  holier  than  that  which  hangs  at 
the  proscenium,  and  the  servant  ministering  at  the  altar 
may  be  less  pure  than  the  impersonator  of  any  charac 
ter  in  Shakspeare  or  Dumas.  We  have  heard  poorer 
sermons  than  from  Rip  Van  Winkle  or  Lord  Dundreary. 
I  honored  Charlotte  Cushman  and  Horace  Bushnell 
alike,  as  in  their  common  Master's  service  they  em 
ployed  all  their  time  and  strength.  There  are  no  more 
sticks  in  the  stock  company  than .  in  the  desk.  The 
clerical  profession  has  been  hurt  by  nothing  more  than 
by  assumptions  of  superior  sanctity  or  peculiar  author 
ity.  An  opera  has  been  called  a  pla}r  worked ;  and 
there  is  as  much  working  and  as  little  of  frying  wing 
often  in  the  parish  incumbent  as  in  the  wire-puller  that 
sets  up  his  travelling  booth. 

It  is  sometimes  said  of  persons  of  wit  and  humor 
that  we  know  not  whether  the}'  are  in  earnest  or  jest. 
But  if  a  matter  is  touching  us  to  the  quick,  these  merry 
men  may  mean  to  protect  us  with  the  turn  the}'  give  ! 
As  a  soft  skin  covers  the  nerves,  which  would  suffer  if 
exposed,  so  deeper  sensibilities  find  in  superficial  ban 
ter  a  shield  and  sheath.  Is  love  always  downright  and 
blunt?  Rather  it  waits  and  goes  round,  and  gently 
breaks  or  remotely  hints  an}T  message  of  pain.  Was 
not  the  prophet  Nathan  a  player  when  he  made  a  fable 
of  David's  sin?  Were  not  all  Christ's  parables  and 
miracles  plays  to  represent  eternal  laws?  The  square 


PLAY.  305 

and  bold  putting  of  things  which  you  boast  of  is  no 
more  true  to  human  nature  than  it  is  kind ;  and  the 
annals  of  philanthropy  abound  in  precious  specimens 
of  injustice  and  hate.  Into  this  internecine  strife  of 
reform  comes  the  humane  mediator,  like  the  middle-man 
in  Goethe's  tale  of  "Elective  Affinities,"  to  parry  the 
edge  of  the  sword ;  and  his  fencing  is  play.  So,  while 
war  thundered,  Abraham  Lincoln  played. 

There  is  nothing  profounder  than  that  play  of  imagi 
nation  by  which  we  translate  ourself  into  another,  and 
transmute  another  into  ourself.  Yet  such  realization 
differs  from  the  histrionic  art.  The  purpose  of  that 
art  is  to  reproduce  a  character  in  outward  appearance, 
to  please  spectators  with  the  show.  It  is  enough  for 
the  actor  if  he  master  the  signs  and  use  the  language 
by  which  the  soul  of  Hamlet  or  Juliet  is  put  forth  as  an 
image  is  projected  on  a  screen.  But  by  assimilation  we 
become  the  one  we  devotedly  follow  and  admire.  So 
we  "  put  on  Jesus  Christ."  The  actor  can  put  his  mask 
on  or  off,  but  the  moral  transfiguration  lasts.  It  is  the 
vocation  of  the  actor  to  entertain  by  pleasantly  filling 
the  hour.  We  have  our  pastime  of  private  theatricals 
and  charades.  But  in  the  real  graft  or  appropriation  of 
noble  traits  to  the  wild  olive-tree  of  our  nature  we  hope 
for  eternal  growth.  When  theological  candidates  are 
exhorted,  as  they  get  into  the  pulpit,  if  they  do  not  feel 
their  subject,  nevertheless  "  to  act  as  if  they  felt  it,  in 
order  to  carry  their  congregation,"  a  rule  is  laid  down 
whose  practice  would  abolish  the  distinction  between 
the  pulpit  and  the  stage,  and  turn  serious  pleading  with 
sinners  into  mimicry  and  a  mock.  No  orthodoxy  but 
must  be  demoralized  by  the  following  of  such  advice. 

20 


306  PRINCIPLES. 

Imagination  is  so  potent  that  we  must  regulate  if  we 
adopt  it  as  a  guide.  Pt^sicians  confess  how  much  it 
has  to  do  with  the  healing  of  disease.  It  puts  virtue 
into  remedies  and  applications  too  slight  and  neutral 
properly  to  have  any  efficacy  of  themselves.  It  invests 
outward  nature  with  charms  not  her  own.  In  human 
nature  its  influence  is  more  marked.  Is  it  simply  a 
person,  or  somewhat  an  imagination  of  one,  that  I 
love,  and  that  another  loves  in  me?  Does  our  affec 
tion  lie  in  a  mutual  astonishment  that  of  what  each 
thinks  so  little  in  himself  the  other  thinks  so  much? 
If  love  wax  cold  with  such  speculation,  let  us  not  do 
our  great  Partner  the  wrong  to  be  forlorn,  nor  cease  to 
have  Nature  for  our  playmate  and  bride !  On  her  ex 
quisite  complexion  and  shapely  form  let  us  still  fix  our 
eye  !  She  will  restore  us  to  mutual  faith. 

Truth  is  positive.  It  is  the  essence,  not  the  attri 
bute,  of  God  ;  and  if  we  construe  Christianity  as  letting 
it  slip,  Hindu  and  Javanese  and  Tonga  ethics  will  still 
remain  to  report,  through  our  linguistic  scholars,  that 
"  there  is  nothing  without  truth."  The  ingenious  writer, 
Alphonse  Karr,  says,  "  God's  goodness  to  the  poor  ap 
pears  in  the  profusion  of  wayside  flowers,  which  are 
of  the  color  of  the  sky."  As  many  are  of  the  color  of 
the  sun!  "  Gra}T  and  melanchol}*  waste,"  in  Bryant's 
phrase,  save  for  the  sepulchral  design  in  his  poem,  does 
not  quite  describe  the  sea,  which  has  many  a  cheerful 
chameleon  hue.  In  communion  with  that  beauty"  which 
the  universe  is,  I  cannot  be  desolate,  however  forsaken 
and  betraj'ed.  Chaos  is  kosmos  to  the  discerning  eye. 
I  am  glad  even  among  the  ragged  rocks,  split  with 
myriad  fine  wedges  of  the  frost,  eaten  into  by  the 


PLAY.  307 

toothed  waves,  and  half  beaten  down  to  a  sandy  floor, 
with  long  deep  clefts  strung  with  boulders  as  beads, 
through  whose  spaces  the  upper  firmament  shines. 
Play  on,  O  elements,  and  please  my  posterity  as  well 
as  ye  do  me  ! 

How  exquisite,  too,  the  live  adjustment  is !  My 
shepherd  dog,  a  two  months'  puppy,  plays  with  the 
kittens,  who  play  together,  each  small  pussy  standing 
her  ground  against  the  big  shaggy  lout.  But  he  has 
learned,  from  many  a  past  encounter  of  wits  and  of 
paws  with  claws,  the  relative  sharpness  of  the  un 
sheathed  weapons,  as  also  of  the  respective  teeth,  and 
just  how  far  it  is  safe  in  his  onset  to  go.  He  growls, 
and  pretends  to  be  very  fierce,  but  is  quite  prudent 
withal,  and  does  not  propose  to  lay  his  handsome  muz 
zle  open  to  the  mischance  of  any  sudden  and  perhaps 
blood}'  blow,  offered  to  him  so  frequently  and  like  a 
flash.  What  a  duel,  as  if  to  match  that  with  a  fencing- 
master,  it  is  !  How  the  interest  of  the  spectacle  comes 
from  the  likeness  to  what  they  see  of  those  who  look, 
before  whom  as  spectators  the  little  beasts  perform, 
acting  themselves,  covertly,  the  part  of  spectators  too ! 
When  in  the  game  temper  comes  in,  and  bites  and 
cuffs  are  exchanged,  how  the  parallels  of  'this  resem 
blance  still  hold ! 

There  is  a  foreign  metaphysic,  according  to  which 
pain  is  the  substance  and  pleasure  but  the  outside  of 
life,  as  the  popular  theology  makes  sin  the  kernel  and 
virtue  only  the  hull.  But,  while  the  creatures  are  at 
play,  the  interest  proceeds  from  the  deeps  ;  and  when 
the}'  growl  and  scratch  and  hook  in  a  barnyard  or  on  a 
battle-field,  they  are  on  the  surface  more.  A  thunder- 


308  PRINCIPLES. 

storm  is  but  a  passing  scream  of  the  electric  force  ;  and 
it  is  said  the  lightning-rod  draws  the  perilous  stuff  from 
the  air  above  our  house  in  silence,  and  all  the  time. 
Let  us  put  up  moral  conductors,  and  not  fear  the  darker 
clouds. 

In  proportion  as  things  rub,  they  do  not  play ;   and 
the  object  is  to  overcome  the  friction  at  every  point. 
What  a  loss  of  power  was  in  the  old  drag  on  which 
heav3r  weights    were   hauled   over   the    stony   ground ! 
What  a  gain  of  tractile  force  is  in  the  wrought-iron 
wheels  that  glide  with  freight  of  uncounted  tons  along 
the  polished  steel  rails  !     There  is  a  shock  at  the  least 
obstacle,  as  when  by  the  ring-bolt  the  flapping  sail  or 
the  wanton  steer  is  brought  up.     But  the  wheels  will 
not  bite  the  over-smooth  rails  ;  and  there  must  be  some 
friction  to  get  along  in  human  life.     Yet  to  diminish  it 
at  every  point  as  much  as  we  maj^  should  be  our  aim, 
pouring  oil  on  the  waves  and  into  the  iron  boxes  and 
joints  ;   for  the  spokes  kindle  which  are  not  lubricated. 
What  meant  the  anointing  of  prophets  and  kings,  but 
to  soften  the  collisions  of  men's  savage  passions,  cool 
their  rages,  and  keep  their  hatreds  from  flaming  out? 
What  were  the  oil  "  that  ran  down  Aaron's  beard  to  the 
skirts  of  his  garments  "  but  a  childish  display  and  fool 
ish  expenditure,  save  for  this  significance  in  the  temple 
and  the  realm  ?    Jesus  was  anointed  ' '  Prince  of  Peace  " 
for  what  but  that  he    might   reconcile    the   alienated, 
make  friends  of  foes,  and  still  worse  storms  than  went 
down,  it  is  said,  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  at  his  word? 
How  to  get  speed  with  safety,  and  how  to  check  ad 
vance  when  peril  is  in  the  way,  is  the  object  of  the 
band  and  rein  and  linch-pin  and  air-brake ;   and  the 


PLAY.  309 

moral  devices  of  wise  precepts  and  good  laws  contem 
plate  no  other  end.  Religion  itself,  as  an  exercise,  will 
be  useless  when  life  becomes  perfect  as  play.  The 
property  and  office  of  great  men  is  to  promote  this  con 
summation,  and  in  their  presence  how  the  soul  dances 
and  sings  ! 

There  is  a  yearning  in  the  youngest  heart  for  the 
exercise  of  sympathy.  When  I  told  a  little  girl  of  the 
burning  of  a  litter  of  common  pigs,  she  said  she  was 
"  sorry  they  were  not  guinea-pigs,  that  she  might  pity 
them  more !  "  Compassion  is  such  a  luxury  that  it  is 
a  question  if  we  could  be  altogether  happy  were  every 
subject  of  commiseration  removed. 

But  in  the  game  of  life  let  us  observe  the  rules,  be 
it  money,  position,  place,  and  repute  we  play  for,  or 
truth,  honor,  human  welfare,  and  the  glory  of  God. 
According  to  our  direction,  ill  blood  or  blessing  shall  be 
the  conclusion ;  and  only  if  the  purpose  be  noble  shall 
the  play  itself  last.  It  will  break  up  in  confusion  if 
it  be  carried  on  with  selfishness.  We  must  tug  not  a 
little  to  get  through  !  Few  are  so  accomplished  as  not 
to  need  on  their  work  something  like  the  fine  emery  or 
grating  sand,  if  not  the  rasp.  The  axe  ground  into 
sharpness  figures  the  disappointment  and  opposition 
which  our  faculties  and  affections  must  be  whet  by.  By 
what  firm  yet  exquisite  touches  the  polish  is  put  upon 
gems!  God  is  a  jeweller,  and  "those  gems  he  sets 
most  store  by  he  hath  oftenest  his  hands  on,"  and 
will  put  into  that  crown  which  is  both  ours  and  his. 
Certain  pieces  of  horn  and  shell  become  like  glossy 
mirrors  only  under  contact  with  the  human  hand ;  and 
there  is  a  pressure  on  us  so  strong  and  sensible  that 


310  PRINCIPLES. 

we  call  it  the  hand  of  God !  He  means  all  parts  of 
our  nature  to  fit,  like  a  choir  to  an  anthem  or  the  keys 
of  a  flute  to  its  ventages  and  stops.  No  instrument  of 
thought  or  feeling  in  this  parlor  of  the  human  breast, 
discourse  melodiously  as  it  may,  but  will  get  out  of  or 
der  and  require  attention  sometimes.  But  by  no  mortal 
hand  can  it  be  altogether  restored.  The  music-master 
whose  skill  we  require  is  unseen,  yet  what  creature  is 
so  ready  as  the  Creator  to  serve  ? 

If  order  be  the  work,  beauty  is  the  play  of  God.  It 
is  not  only  "  its  own  excuse  for  being,"  but  we  cannot 
tell  how  it  is.  "  The  beauty  of  flowering  plants,"  says 
Mr.  Darwin,  "is  useful  in  attracting  insects  to  fertilize 
and  perpetuate  them."  But  the  manner  or  reason  of  its 
first  existence  his  theory  does  not  explain ;  and  the 
botanist  finds  many  blossoms,  conspicuously  beautiful, 
insects  are  not  drawn  to,  and  which  therefore  serve  no 
such  end ;  so  that  the  utilitarian  philosophy  breaks 
down  often  at  the  points  of  its  own  chosen  applica 
tion,  while  it  utterly  fails  to  account  for  beauty  in 
the  inorganic  world.  The  insects  themselves,  in  being 
lured  to  brilliant  forms,  share  with  us  in  an  enjoyment 
which  we  do  not  understand  more  than  they,  thus  own 
ing  a  common  bond.  The  domesticated  animals  know, 
as  well  as  do  our  children,  what  it  is  to  play.  The  dog 
has  his  duties  ;  but  he  never  comes  so  close  to  his  mas 
ter  as  when  they  play  together.  B}7  much  referring  to 
his  superior's  gesture  and  look  he  becomes  partaker  of 
human  nature,  as  by  that  reference  which  we  call  prayer 
we  become  partakers  of  the  Divine.  Where  we  can 
detect  her  method  and  follow  her  uniform  step,  perhaps 
Nature  may  be  said  to  work.  But  she  unfolds,  under 


PLAY. 


311 


the  gardener's  eye,  many  sporting  varieties,  beyond  what 
he  had  expected  or  contrived,  and  which  are  peculiarly 
suited  to  stir  admiration  by  their  tint  and  shape.  So 
vast  and  minute,  so  changeful  and  surprising,  are  the 
charms,  which  no  knowledge  can  dissect  or  fathom  in 
all  her  realms,  we  feel  that  the  inmost  of  her  Author  is 
revealed  in  the  outmost  of  her  displays,  and  that  our 
communion  together  and  with  him  is  no  solemn  task  or 
formal  service,  but  even  that  play  which  is  the  height 
of  our  powers,  and  that  pleasure  which  is  joy  in  the 
Holy  Ghost. 


PART  II. 
PORTRAITS. 


PART  II. 
PORTRAITS. 


i. 

THE  PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEARE. 

'THHAT  French  philosopher,  Fernand  Papillon,  the 
-•-  farthest  possible  from  the  butterfly  signified  by 
his  name,  in  the  "  Revue  de  deux  Mondes,"  relates  that 
an  Englishman  having  told  his  groom  to  go  over  the 
way  after  his  friend  Shakspeare,  the  servant  inquired 
how  he  should  know  him  in  the  crowd  ;  and  the  master 
replied,  "He  alone  looks  like  a  man;  all  the  rest  are 
animals."  Yet,  while  we  worship  the  poet,  we  say  the 
man  has  no  character.  We  question  as  respects  the 
greatest  name  in  the  classic  school,  if  there  were  any 
Homer  or  many  singers  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey ;  and 
the  supreme  romantic  English  bard  does  not  appear  in 
his  work,  and  never  had  his  portrait  taken.  He  effaces 
himself.  With  a  matchless  mind  he  led,  so  it  is  said,  an 
obscure  and  profane  life,  and  was  a  mere  master  of  the 
revels  and  entertainer  at  the  Blackfriars'  Theatre,  open 
to  Mahomet's  reproach  from  the  gods  to  the  merry 
makers,  "  Think  ye  we  have  made  the  heaven  and  earth 
for  sport  ?  "  Shakspeare  was  not  a  genteel,  fashionable 


316  PORTRAITS. 

person,  not  a  great  leader,  a  religious  reformer,  a  mili 
tary  captain,  an  ecclesiastical  officer,  or  a  conventional 
saint. 

But  we  must  not  ask  one  man  to  be  all  men,  —  Goethe 
to  be  a  politician,  or  Shakspeare  a  courtier,  Moses  an 
orator,  or  Luther  a  general  in  the  field.  If  the  pith  of 
manhood  goes  into  what  one  does  or  says,  he  pays  his 
passage  or  cumbers  not  the  ground.  It  is  sometimes 
said  of  a  humorist  that  we  cannot  tell  when  he  is  se 
rious,  as  if  in  aught  were  more  reality  than  there  is  in 
wit.  Shakspeare  was  a  dramatist ;  but  ' '  all  the  world 's 
a  stage  and  the  men  and  women  merely  players,"  and 
the  end  of  the  creation  may  prove  to  be  play  rather 
than  work.  What  is  the  universe  but  God's  theatre,  in 
which,  without  jar  or  grating,  every  piece  of  scenery 
slides  ?  Despite  pain  and  grief  and  sin  and  death,  the 
object  is  that  harmony  of  perfect  play  which  is  prophe 
sied  in  every  childish  game.  In  his  essence  Shakspeare 
was  a  player,  as  Garrick,  perhaps  his  chief  impersona 
tor,  was  never  so  much  himself  as  when  enacting  some 
part.  When  he  was  missed  at  the  inn  his  friends  found 
him  in  a  back-yard,  throwing  a  negro  boy,  his  solitary 
spectator,  into  convulsions  of  laughter,  as  he  mocked 
the  feathery  fuss  of  a  turkey-cock.  Shakspeare  was  no 
notable  and  forward  personage.  We  imagine  him  look 
ing  shyly  at  every  thing  and  through  everybody.  No 
doubt  he,  as  do  all  the  great,  liked  obscurity.  Fenelon 
wished  to  be  unknown,  Wesley  wanted  no  monument, 
Moses  declined  to  be  an  orator,  Turner  was  gruff  to  bores, 
Agassiz  hated  interruption,  Hawthorne  drew  up  the  lad 
der  into  his  study,  and  Jesus  hid  himself.  Emerson, 
when  the  callers  came,  missed  his  mighty  gods.  Hunt 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEARE.         317 

cared  much  for  Michael  Angelo  and  little  for  connoisseurs, 
and  Whittier  would  prefer  the  good  opinion  of  his  neigh 
bors  to  the  fame  of  Shakspeare  !  Father  Taylor  goes 
alone,  and  mutters  to  himself  because  he  says  he  "  likes 
to  talk  to  a  sensible  man  ;  "  and  to  a  fine  compliment  Car- 
lyle  says,  "  Pshaw,  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it !  "  Web 
ster  had  fits  of  silence  which  it  was  dangerous  to  disturb. 
Charles  Lowell  so  enjoyed  his  devotions  that  he  would 
rather  have  been  the  author  of  Isaac  Watts' s  hymns  than 
of  Shakspeare's  plays.  All  high  character  or  genius  is 
on  condition  of  heeding  the  law  of  incubation  on  the 
finer  than  roc's  egg  of  thought.  The  soul  may  have ;? 
been  a  bird  once,  it  so  loves  still  to  brood !  It  is  not  f 
fond  of  interviewers  and  reporters.  So,  to  be  obscure 
and  profane,  in  some  sense,  was  Shakspeare's  note  of 
worth. 

It  was  glorious  to  run  from  the  pursuit  of  glory  ;  all 
the  better  if  Essex  and  Leicester  would  not  speak  save 
in  condescension  to  the  playwright  as  they  passed.  He 
kept  low  company,  as  the  old  scribes  and  Pharisees  said 
a  certain  other  person  did,  and  as  Socrates  consorted 
with  disreputable  persons  earlier  still.  Even  sinners 
are  better  society  than  the  self-righteous.  Must  not  one 
get  clear  of  his  own  shadow  and  make  himself  of  no 
reputation  in  order  that  he  may  see  clearly?  Benjamin 
Paul  Blood  says  we  learn  more  as  we  come  to  after 
anaesthesia,  than  from  Fichte  or  Hegel.  But  Shakspeare 
dwelt  in  the  land  of  surprise,  and  was  coming  to  all  the 
time.  Genius  is  the  child  of  wonder,  and  able  to  en 
visage  all  being  in  its  own.  It  takes  a  low  position 
and  gazes  from  a  covert.  The  artist  does  not  stare  at 
things  or  at  people,  but  catches  them  with  half- shut 


318  PORTRAITS. 

eye  at  a  sidelong  look.  No  stealth  is  like  his  !  Noth 
ing  is  worth  observing  which  he  does  not  behold.  Our 
thoughts  do  not  come  to  the  front  and  present  them 
selves  in  full  dress,  but  sidle  in  and  startle  us  with  their 
unexpected  salute  and  sudden  good-morning.  The 
thinker  is  not  a  bold  hunter,  but  lurks  modestly  for  his 
game. 

We  search  in  vain  for  any  man's  personality  in  his 
notoriet}7.  We  must  come  at  Shakspeare's  in  his  pen, 
remembering  that  it  is  a  false  distinction  which  would 
certify  more  significance  in  a  deed  than  in  a  word.  But, 
as  we  treat  of  his  representations,  the  puritanic  criticism 
recurs  in  another  form,  that  he  slights  the  lowly  and 
flatters  the  chivalrous  and  high-born,  holding  in  honor  no 
such  characters  as  some  that  Goethe  chooses,  especially 
of  women  from  common  life.  We  must  not  ask  Shak- 
speare  to  be  a  modern  four  centuries  after  his  death  ;  but 
that  he  was  less  republican  than  Goethe  would  be  hard 
to  prove,  either  from  his  conduct  or  his  lines.  The 
German,  in  the  little  court  of  Saxe-Weimar,  deferred  to 
potentate  and  prince ;  while  a  fine  ear  detects  a  false 
poetic  ring  in  the  compliment  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  hint 
ing  that  it  did  not  come  from  Shakspeare's  creative 
hand. 

It  is  a  more  serious  charge  that  he  was  indifferent  to 
moral  distinctions,  and  with  impartial  pencil  drew  the 
sinner  and  saint.  Is  God  indifferent,  with  his  equal  sun 
and  rain  over  all  ?  Did  Shakspeare  care  for  all  alike  ? 
Would  you  know  what  he  loved  or  hated,  mark  what  he 
makes  you  love  or  hate !  What  was  he  ?  What  his 
pages  make  you  wish  to  be  !  Do  you  feel  nobler,  read 
ing  him?  He  was  noble,  too.  He  weighs  what  his 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEARE.         319 

works  weigh.  How  many  pulpits  would  it  take  for  an 
equivalent?  Could  we  not  spare  all  the  churches  and 
cathedrals  of  England,  and  sink  the  sea-girt  isle  rather' 
than  that  one  book  ?  The  little  booth  he  admits  us  into 
becomes  a  world-wide  audience-chamber  with  a  solemn 
desk.  The  Globe  Theatre  expands  into  the  dimensions 
of  the  globe.  What  does  human  nature,  not  any  com 
mentator,  think  of  him?  Reverently  I  say  it,  he  too 
"  draws  all  men  to  him,"  sitting,  as  our  poet  has  it, 

"  Lone  as  the  blessed  Jew." 

That  touch  of  nature  which,  he  says,  "  makes  the  whole 
world  kin,"  he  gives ;  and  the  enthusiasts  for  him  are 
on  the  continent  of  Europe  as  much  as  on  his  native 
soil.  Pastime  does  he  give?  Sober  study  too,  as  he 
condenses  .the  drift  of  history  on  his  page !  He  fur 
nishes  texts  for  new  treatises  in  art,  histoty,  nature,  and 
natural  history,  medicine,  and  law.  Says  a  doctor  to  me, 
"  Shakspeare  guessed  before  Harvey  the  circulation  of 
the  blood ;  he  described  better  than  an}7  later  observer 
the  phenomena  of  sleep-walking  ;  and  he  enumerates  the 
offices  of  sleep  with  a  perfection  which  the  most  recent 
physiologist  cannot  excel."  When  he  calls  it  "  chief 
nourisher  in  life's  feast,"  he  states  the  scientific  fact ! 
A  volume  has  been  written  by  a  Canada  professor  to 
prove  that  his  Caliban  is  Darwin's  missing  link.  Dick- 
ens's  Quilp,  or  Victor  Hugo's  Quasimodo,  is  perhaps  not 
quite  in  nature ;  but  Caliban,  an  odder  creature,  is  im 
mortal,  a  species  by  himself,  and  cannot  be  left  out. 

Had  he  no  moral  judgment  because  he  pronounces 
no  sentence  from  the  bench  ?  Be  sure  that  your  opin 
ion  of  lago,  Othello,  Shylock,  and  Richard  III.  was  his. 


320  PORTRAITS. 

Plain  men  from  the  country,  on  their  first  visit  to  the 
theatre,  want  to  interfere  and  choke  some  of  those  wor 
thies  on  the  spot  and  before  the  time.  Did  Shakspeare 
make  Timon  the  misanthrope  as  weighty  in  his  approval 
as  Alcibiades,  or  as  the  Merchant  in  his 'scale?  He 
loves  all  indeed,  like  the  Maker,  and  condemns  only  as 
he  describes !  Like  a  detective  he  photographs  the 
murderer  and  the  thief.  "Your  portrait,"  one  said  to 
an  artist,  "  is  that  of  a  fox."  "  The  sitter  is  one,"  he 
replied.  Does  Shakspeare  rate  villain  and  noble  alike, 
because  he  paints  them  with  like  care  ?  Only  as  the 
naturalist  so  values  bat  and  beetle,  fish  and  scorpion, 
mastodon  and  man,  because  all  the  skeletons  are  in  his 
museum,  or  in  his  alcoholic  bottles  creatures  fierce  and 
gentle  are  at  peace.  Shakspeare  was  not  portrait-painter 
for  Her  Majesty,  but  for  the  human  race.  The  sun  may 
err,  but  not  his  pencil ;  and  y ou  ma}'  as  well  criticise  the 
landscape  as  his  scenes.  He  keeps  himself  out ;  no  atom 
of  his  individuality  intrudes  into  his  pictures.  All  his 
lendings  and  limitations  are  dropped,  like  a  traveller's 
cloak  in  the  entry  or  a  snake's  skin  in  the  woods.  It  has 
been  said,  Goethe  is  the  more  perfect  artist  and  Shak- 
speare  the  greater  nature.  But  what  is  art,  if  not  the 
power  to  delineate  others  and  omit  one's  self? 

Who  was  Shakspeare  ?  But  small  part  of  him  is  in 
the  parish-register  or  tomb,  that  tells  us  he  reached  his 
fifty-third  year,  or  states  the  parentage  of  what  so  ex 
ceeded  that  by  which  it  was  begotten  or  born.  The 
physical  geography,  says  Mr.  Buckle,  largely  determines 
the  character  of  the  population ;  but  in  this  case  what 
has  Stratford-upon-Avon  to  say  ?  Can  we  find  the  man 
we  are  after  in  the  supposed  boyish  poacher  on  his 


THE  PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEARE.         321 

neighbor's  estate,  in  the  landholder's  prosecution  of  a 
debtor  for  corn,  in  the  lad  flinging  jests  from  the  turn 
stile  at  the  passers-by,  in  the  testator's  bequest  of  his 
second  best  bed  to  the  wife  who  may  have  legally  in 
herited  the  best,  or  in  the  blessing  and  ban  on  the 
gravestone,  —  as  if  after  he  had  done  with  them  he  really 
could  care  for  his  bones  ?  We  know  at  least  what  he  was 
not.  He  was  no  court-clown,  such  as  kings  once  kept. 
Never  lived  one  to  whom  the  world  was  less  a  jest !  As 
grotesque  as  nature,  so  is  he.  The  Psalmist  says,  God 
laughs  at  certain  persons  and  has  them  in  derision ;  and 
our*  poet  catches  from  the  Divine  countenance  the  trick 
of  that  smiling  ;  but  no  more  than  the  Arab  prophet  him 
self  is  he  exposed  to  the  curse  of  the  Koran  on  any  tri 
fling  unfit  to  the  time.  For  if  heaven  and  earth  were 
not  made  for  sport,  no  more  were  those  tragedies,  with 
whose  characters  the  muse  must  have  travailed  in  pain, 
before  they  stalked  forth  on  the  planetary  stage  which 
they  will  never  quit.  What  a  collection  and  what  a 
preservation  it  is !  This  amber  holds  the  fl}T,  and  it 
holds  the  world.  The  mortal  millions  pass.  Kings  and 
princes  are  dead.  Their  forms  are  gone,  beyond  art 
of  Egypt  to  embalm ;  while,  out  of  the  realm  of  imagi 
nation  and  rock  of  ages,  who  is  this  that  quarries  Ham 
let  and  Lear  and  Imogen  and  Desdemona,  —  ideal  shapes 
to  abide  beyond  any  actual,  and  shadows  which  no  man 
ever  saw  in  this  buckram  we  wear  of  flesh  and  blood, 
3'et  of  more  than  human  substance  to  walk  over  our 
ashes,  to  survive  our  frame,  to  mock  this  short-lived  set 
of  egoists  that  we  are,  and  challenge  for  themselves 
alike  longevity  and  perpetual  youth?  Whence  such 
creations  ?  From  no  buffoonery  and  no  levity  of  a  privi- 

21 


322  PORTRAITS. 

leged  joker  commissioned  to  supply  the  boards  with 
mirth,  but  out  of  a  gravity  like  that  which  made  the 
satellites  and  the  sun. 

Who  was  Shakspeare  ?  No  materialist  at  least.  The 
Saddncees  can  make  nothing  of  him.  It  were  cutting 
matter  very  fine  to  whittle  it  into  all  the  products  his 
brain  swarmed  with,  and  to  find  room  in  its  convolutions 
for  what  has  flown  out  of  that  hive  to  hover  and  hum  in 
all  the  gardens  and  over  all  the  field-flowers  of  the 
world.  You  blame  this  plenipotentiary  for  being  a 
good  fellow?  But  does  the  greatest  earnestness  frown 
or  weep?  No,  it  burns  and  is  benign  to  bless !  Was 
all  the  levity  with  Thackeray  and  Dickens,  and  did  the 
seriousness  belong  but  to  John  Calvin  and  John  Knox? 

"  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
Than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy." 

This  author  gets  himself  quoted  more  than  are  those 
theologic  polemics  now,  even  on  themes  supramun- 
dane.  The  "  majesty  of  buried  Denmark"  convinces 
us  of  a  "bourn"  bej'ond,  whether  travellers  return 
from  it  or  not.  The  ghosts  in  the  sittings  and  circles 
all  vanish  ;  Shakspeare's  remain.  Of  what  tough  mate 
rial  are  they  made?  The  witches,  withered  arid  wild 
in  their  attire  on  the  blasted  heath,  the  fairies,  Puck 
and  Oberon  with  their  tricksy  wa3~s,  like  Goethe's  moth 
ers  and  Milton's  angels,  persuade  us  of  other  orders 
of  being  than  go  to  market,  or  crowd  on  'Change, 
or  dispute  in  the  legislature,  or  clasp  gold  crucifixes,  or 
recite  from  illuminated  missals,  count  beads,  and  bow 
with  velvet  propriety  in  church. 

Who  was  Shakspeare  ?    A  greater  architect  than  Inigo 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEAKE.        323 

Jones  or  Christopher  Wren  !  Nobody  has  taken  up  the 
line  between  matter  and  spirit  with  hand  so  deft.  Where 
fore  do  his  delegates  from  the  invisible  stand  and  keep 
their  footing  as  denizens  here  below,  but  for  somewhat 
perdurable  in  the  stuff  they,  like  dreams,  are  made  of? 
What  credit  would  there  be  for  his  association  of  the 
seraph  and  worm,  save  from  a  constitutional  suspicion 
that  the  soaring  seraph  as  well  as  the  grovelling  worm 
exists  ?  Without  this  substratum  of  innate  belief,  the 
spectres  were  ludicrous  assumptions,  blown  light  as 
down  instead  of  being  cut  in  some  divine  cameo,  till 
these  ethereal  forms,  which  the  hand  can  pass  through, 
but  the  eye  not  close  upon,  become  adamant  to  the 
mind.  How  much  literary  work  perishes  as  an  extinct 
species,  while  Shakspeare's  is  the  fittest  and  survives ! 

The  puritanic  conscience  cross-questions  him  on  the 
point  of  piety,  and  doubts  if  he  were  a  religious  man ; 
and  if,  to  be  a  sample  of  devoutness,  one  must  be  morose 
and  sour,  with  longitude  and  no  latitude  of  face,  then 
this  genial  creature  and  creator  cannot  meet  any  eccle 
siastical  committee  with  his  claims,  and  with  the  oval 
features  that  had  nothing  in  them  lean.  But  supreme 
genius  is  prayer  and  answer  to  prayer  in  Homer,  in 
Dante,  in  Milton,  and  Goethe  too,  who  but  for  a  pious 
experience  never  could  have  written  the  "  Confessions 
of  a  Beautiful  Soul."  Irreverent  unbelief  marks  inferior 
power  in  Byron,  Heine,  and  Poe.  In  the  light  of  in 
tuition,  and  over  the  gulf  of  atheistic  understanding, 
Shakspeare  springs  the  arch  of  faith ;  and  no  Greek 
or  English  prayer-book  affords  finer  collects  than  come 
from  the  mouths  of  his  interlocutors  in  the  action  of 
many  a  piece,  as  it  naturally  flows.  He  knew  what  it 


324  PORTRAITS. 

means  to  "  cast  thy  burden  on  the  Lord,"  and  that 
such  inspiration  is  the  next  act  after  despair  !  For  the 
poet  speaks  under  influence.  He  is  mastered  by  the 
muse  and  never  its  master,  although  it  have  conditions 
for  its  gifts.  Its  stream  bursts  like  an  artesian  well 
after  much  digging.  "  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  list- 
eth ;  "  but  it  listeth  to  blow  through  some  channel  of 
conscious  need,  that,  like  a  vacuum  of  air  around  a 
headland,  sucks  its  current  in !  The  heavenly  or  the 
possessed  man  whom  we  call  artist,  and  who  drinks 
from  God  like  the  saint,  cannot  explain  his  ways ; 
and,  if  he  could,  he  would  decease  and  go  by  default. 
The  trickster,  Cagliostro  or  any  other,  can  let  }TOU  into 
the  secret,  show  his  hand,  and  tell  how  he  does  his 
trick !  But  study  can  only  build  the  staging  on  which 
power  appears,  miraculous  and  never  understanding  it 
self.  Perfect  art  is  but  preparation  for  perfect  nature 
and  the  breathing-hole  of  genius,  as  its  lungs  and  the 
sea  help  the  whale  to  gambol  and  sport.  God  works, 
but  does  not  labor.  His  effort  is  ease,  and  his  accom 
plishment  perpetual  play. 

Where  so  much  is  memorable  in  an  author  one  fears 
to  quote.  The  quoter  cites  himself!  Do  we  not  judge 
.of  the  sort  of  insect  by  its  flying  to  a  honeysuckle  or 
seeking  tainted  food?  But  is  not  Ferdinand's  asking 
Miranda's  name  chiefly  that  he  might  "  set  it  in  his 
prayers,"  and  Hamlet's  begging  Ophelia, 

"  Nymph,  in  thy  orisons 
Be  all  my  sins  remembered," 

and  the  usurping  king's  appeal, 

"Help,  angels,  make  assay  ! 

Bow,  stubborn  knees  !  and,  heart,  with  strings  of  steel, 
Be  soft  as  sinews  of  the  new-born  babe," 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF    SHAKSPEARE.         325 

proof  for  the  poet  that  his  closet  had  a  door?  A 
Shakspeare  expurgated  by  a  scientist  of  what  he  counts 
superstition  no  scientist  could  read.  The  divinity  is 
not  lacking,  but  lurking  in  ten  thousand  lines  which 
mention  not  its  name.  The  elements  are  our  poet's 
pigments.  All  nature  is  in  solution  for  his  experiments  ; 
and  his  handling  is  more  dexterous  than  that  of  the 
man  who  does  the  puzzle  of  knots  and  rings.  It  is  not 
ingenuity,  but  that  vitality  indispensable  in  all  the  arts, 
which  have  this  common  bond.  How  it  lures  us  in  the 
landscapes  of  Millet  and  Corot,  and  the  portraits  of 
Couture  !  The  burden  of  old  oppression,  the  pathos  of 
meek  suffering,  the  forming  cloud  of  political  revolution, 
as,  in  the  picture  of  the  "  Sower,"  the  poor  peasants  drive 
home  from  the  furrows  the  sunset  team,  enter,  as  we 
gaze,  into  the  quick.  The  canvas  of  Corot  is  saturated 
with  tender  sentiment,  and  pervaded  as  with  a  thin 
smoke  from  human  homes,  while  a  certain  grandeur  in 
Couture's  motive  and  execution  reminds  us  of  the  an 
cient  style.  But  Shakspeare  was  a  painter  too.  Hu 
man  nature  sat  to  him,  and  nature  furnished  the  tints. 
The  world  was  his  studio,  and  his  values  were  right. 
The  physical  immensities  subserve  his  spiritual  de 
signs. 

"  There  's  not  the  smallest  orb,  which  thou  behold'st, 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubins." 

Could  Job  or  David  do  better  ?  Lorenzo  tells  Stephano 
to  bring  his  "  music  forth  into  the  air,"  because  soft 
stillness  and  the  night  become  its  ' '  touches  ;  "  and 
straightway  the  little  twangling  pipes  and  chords  are 
lifted  to  the  spheres,  and  the  stars  made  the  servants 


326  PORTRAITS. 

of  a  serenade.  Daybreak  ceases  to  be  an  event  in 
nature.  It  is  the  time  for  the  lover  to  leave  his  mis 
tress's  window,  and  for  the  ghost  to  flee  as  it  snuffs  the 
morning  air.  A  vegetable  shall  be  an  example. 

"  And  winking  Mary-buds  begin 
To  ope  their  golden  eyes  : 
With  every  thing,  that  pretty  bin, 
My  lad}*-  sweet,  arise  !  " 

All  without  is  tool  or  plaything  for  the  poet's  purpose. 
In  his  exchange  the  world  is  converted  like  paper  into 
coin.  Always  it  is  specie  payment  with  him.  All  na 
ture  is  the  note  of  hand  and  the  gold-room  in  his  mind. 
When  Duncan,  in  "  Macbeth,"  says, 

"  This  castle  hath  a  pleasant  seat ;  the  air 
Nimbly  and  sweetly  recommends  itself 
Unto  our  gentle  senses," 

do  we  think  it  is  for  the  description's  sake?  What 
threat  of  rising  tempest  could  surpass  the  suggestive- 
ness  of  this  charming  frontispiece  ?  As  a  white  cloud  in 
Indian  seas  hides  the  terrible  thunder  and  wind,  so  what 
sketches  of  passion,  cyclones  of  ambition,  whirls  of 
supernatural  visiting,  and  lightnings  of  fate  lie  behind 
this  foreground,  so  softly  shining,  lovely,  and  pure  !  In 
Shakspeare's  orrery  comet  or  planet  has  its  place. 

But  was  Shakspeare  a  moral  man  ?  We  must  judge 
him  by  his  handling  of  his  instrument,  in  the  same 
measure  as  we  do  David  by  his  harp ;  and  what  a 
tuning-key  he  holds  !  Nature  has  no  more  success  in  her 
choir,  composed  of  the  roar  of  the  sea,  ripple  on  the 
beach,  and  wind  in  the  trees,  to  accompany  the  birds, 
than  has  our  poet  in  making  the  strong  passions  and  the 
tender  affections  to  chime.  Shylock  or  lago  strikes 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEABE.         327 

some  bass  drum  or  bassoon  in  the  orchestra  ;  and  were 
that  note  missed,  the  concert  would  be  marred.  "  This 
is  Beethoven's  Gethsemane,"  said  a  performer  of  some 
strain  full  of  struggle.  From  Shakspeare's  harmony 
no  sin  or  sorrow  can  escape.  Be  the  jarring  what  it 
may,  he  persuades  us  that  the  world  is  concord.  Could 
Judas  be  spared  out  of  the  gospel  picture?  Nothing 
and  no  one  can  be  spared.  Shakspeare  was  no  ascetic ; 
but  who  shall  say  it  was  not  innocent  pleasure  in  which 
he  lived?  He  was  no  professor  of  religion,  like  loose 
Queen  Mary  or  cruel  Elizabeth,  and  he  enjoj'ed  a  quip 
at  strait-laced  puritans  and  long-faced  hypocrites ;  but 
how  he  delighted  to  communicate  joy  !  He  teaches  us 
to  reserve  no  good ;  and  in  case  of  heart-bleeding,  so 
to  sympathize  with  our  fellow,  brother  or  sister,  as  not 
to  know  from  which  heart  it  comes  !  But  no  drunkard 
or  debauchee  could  he  have  been.  When  Daniel  Web 
ster  was  charged  with  being  continually  in  his  cups,  —  as 
one  said,  "  the  ship  of  State  in  full  career,  with  a  drunk 
ard  at  the  helm,"  —  it  was  answered,  Webster's  were  not 
the  works  of  an  habitual  sot !  From  what  but  a  con 
stant  and  immense  sobriety  could  Shakspeare's  works, 
which  we  call  plays,  have  come?  Napoleon  allowed 
himself  four  hours'  sleep.  Could  he  the  poet  have 
had  more,  who  achieved  his  stint  in  scarce  above  a 
score  of  years?  Through  what  big,  chaste,  well-ordered 
apartments  must  the  characters  from  his  all-conceiving 
imagination  have  trooped ! 

Who  was  he  ?  Doubtless  a  hearty  despiser  of  all  pre 
tence.  "  Dost  thou  think,  because  thou  art  virtuous, 
there  shall  be  no  more  cakes  and  ale  ? "  in  ' '  Twelfth 
Night "  says  Sir  Toby  to  the  Clown,  who  answers, 


328  PORTRAITS. 

"  Yes,  and  ginger  shall  be  hot  i'  the  mouth  too."  But, 
if  so  much  may  be  cited  against  any  principle  or 
policy  of  prohibition,  or  the  making  of  abstinence  a 
boast  and  all  indulgence  a  sin,  how  Hamlet,  on  the  other 
hand,  brands  and  scores  intemperance  when  he  tells 
Horatio,  "  We  will  teach  you  to  drink  deep  ere  you  de 
part,"  and  says  the  custom  is  "  honored  more  in  the 
breach  than  in  the  observance  "  !  To  what  disgrace  and 
pinching  torment,  in  "  The  Tempest,"  come  the  sottish 
Trinculo  and  Stephano"?  What  account  in  the  Bible 
has  more  of  shame  and  woe  than  that  of  the  witty  and 
profligate  Falstaff,  as  King  Henry  puts  him  aside  with 
the  epithet  ' '  vain  man  "  ?  When  the  dissolute  courtier 
expires,  fumbling  the  sheets,  babbling  of  green  fields, 
and  crying  out,  "  God,  God,  God,"  what  draft  or  re 
vision  of  the  Ten  Commandments  was  ever  more  sol 
emn  since  the  covers  of  the  Pentateuch  were  put  on? 
When  the  guilty  Alonzo  was  supernaturally  thrown  into 
dreams  which  make  nature  the  voice  of  conscience, 
when  the  billows  spoke  and  the  winds  sang  and  the 
thunder  "did  bass  his  trespass,"  then  in  this  scripture 
of  humanit}7  what  a  halo  of  beaut}r,  discourse  of  har 
mony,  and  illustration  of  law  ! 

Indecencies  are  by  Shakspeare  expressed ;  but  no 
one  ever  told  the  story  of  uncleanness  more  cleanly, 
with  greater  simplicity,  or  with  less  relish  of  his  own 
imparted  in  his  style.  There  is  something  to  skip  in 
the  Old  Testament,  and  the  preacher  must  have  a 
washed  mouth  for  some  passages  in  the  New.  There 
is  in  our  author  naught  to  tempt  or  corrupt  for  whoever 
survej^s  fairly  the  relations  in  every  scene.  In  Solo 
mon's  Proverbs  or  David's  fifty-first  penitential  Psalm 


THE  PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEARE.         329 

is  purity  more  awful  than  in  "  Measure  for  Measure,"  in 
the  tale  of  Angelo  and  Isabel?  If  life  be  a  masquerade, 
here  is  an  unmasker  who  lets  no  veil  or  visor  stay  ;  and 
the  revealer  is  no  saint  in  his  own  esteem,  but  constructs 
a  confessional  with  which  no  curtained  priestly  box  can 
vie.  Who  can  refuse  to  absolve  him  on  reading  the 
tender  sonnet  beginning 

"  Oh,  for  my  sake  do  you  with  Fortune  chide !  " 

Is  nothing  known  of  Shakspeare's  character?  Behold 
in  his  poetry  his  personality  !  He  is  but  half  concealed 
in  every  figure  in  which  he  impersonates  another,  and 
he  is  openly  shown  in  every  sonnet  where  he  personates 
himself.  More  subtle,  deep,  and  full-proportioned  is 
the  man  in  his  dramas  than  in  the  sonnets,  that  but 
circle  around  his  individuality,  like  those  arrested  cur 
rents  that  wear  smooth  basins  in  rocky  beds  among  the 
hills.  This  world  of  his  was  not  made  out  of  nothing, 
nor  the  brick  for  his  building  fashioned  without  straw 
and  fire  and  fierce  kneading  in  the  furnace,  though  the 
smoke  be  gone,  and  not  a  foul  atom  left  from  the  chim 
ney  that  burned  its  own  soot. 

Who  was  Shakspeare?  He  was  not  Lord  Bacon, 
who  lacked  virtue  even  more,  if  possible,  than  he  did 
genius  for  the  task  which  some  have  imputed  as  his. 
Internal  evidence  is  there  in  all  these  benignant  gospels 
that  their  writer  was  a  truth-teller  at  least  and  in 
comparably  just.  He  was  a  very  un-Romish  Catholic, 
one  comma  of  whose  pen  could  not  by  the  gold  of  king 
doms  be  bribed.  Bacon  is  strong  to  draw  along  loaded 
wagons  of  treasure  in  his  Essays ;  but  where  is  the 
light  and  lambent  flame  which  in  this  alchemist's  lab- 


330  PORTRAITS. 

oratory  licks  into  airy  beauty  every  atom  of  the  work? 
Where  in  the  stately  and  ponderous  sage  is  the  melody 
which  in  the  bard  so  sweetens  and  lifts  ever}*  lyric  and 
inteiiuding  snatch,  as  well  as  in  the  argument  every 
sober  line  ?  We  think  that  as  a  musical  composer  must 
have  his  notes  in  imagination  before  he  puts  down  his 
score,  so  Shakspeare's,  like  Mendelssohn's,  must  at  first 
have  been  "  songs  without  words." 

Who  was  Shakspeare?  A  genial  friend,  trusted  by 
the  townsfolk  with  business  in  London,  and  himself  a 
thriving  man.  His  wares  did  not  indeed  come  out  of 
a  wretched  garret.  His  muse  was  not  poverty,  nor 
to  misery  goes  the  credit  or  responsibility  for  what  he 
brought  to  pass.  It  were  unreasonable  in  Anne  Hatha 
way  not  to  be  content  with  her  spouse !  Was  aught 
free  and  easy  in  his  manners?  He  could  be  no  acid 
bigot,  not  intolerant,  uncharitable,  self-righteous,  or 
spiritually  proud.  He  had  a  humanity,  liberality,  and 
forgiveness  Heaven-like  and  world-wide.  Fanaticism 
may  have  its  excellence,  and  good-nature  its  defect. 
But  in  the  balance  let  me  shrink  from  the  first  and 
incur  the  last,  though  at  the  cost  of  overlooking  some 
follies  in  my  fellows  or  having  some  weaknesses  to  par 
don  in  myself ,  remembering  what  one  said  about  ' '  the 
holier  than  thou "  !  What  avails  purity  in  one  that 
stings  us  with  his  persistent  notional  rebuke,  and  like  a 
buzzing  insect  returns  to  the  same  spot ;  in  a  masculine 
or  feminine  spy  whose  interrogations  keep  alive  the  in 
quisition,  torturing  and  killing  with  inquiiy ;  in  a  human 
brier  that  takes  toll  of  the  skin  or  wool  of  every  crea 
ture  that  may  pass?  Shakspeare  was,  and  teaches  us 
to  be,  none  such.  When  he  deprecates  being  com 
memorated, 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEAKE.         331 

"Lest  the  wise  world  should  look  into  your  moan, 
And  mock  you  with  me  after  I  am  gone/' 

we  think  of  some  etude  of  Chopin,  some  sonata  or 
funeral  march  of  Beethoven ;  and  we  enshrine  the 
writer  in  the  recollection  he  repudiates  and  abjures. 
Was  he  not  a  serious  man  who  said  * 

"  Love  is  not  love 
Which  alters  when  it  alteration  finds  "  ? 

Was  his  disinterestedness  betrayed  ?  In  the  oft-quoted 
lines, 

"Take,  oh,  take  those  lips  away," 

the  close  is  commonly  omitted, 

"  But  my  kisses  bring  again," 

which  is  the  most  touching  and  imaginative  part. 
Charles  Lamb  has  an  essay  on  persons  one  would  wish 
to  have  seen.  Would  not  our  curiosity  spare  all  the 
courts  in  Christendom  to  meet  Shakspeare  ?  But  do  we 
not  meet  him  personally,  if  not  individually  ?  Individ 
uality  is  one's  distinction  from  another.  It  may  be  in 
beast,  tree,  stone,  or  in  any  thing  as  well  as  man.  Per 
sonality  is  one's  expression  of  universal  spirit  and  truth. 
It  is  a  property  of  the  soul.  It  is  the  organ  and  instru 
ment  of  the  spirit  within  or  above.  Individually,  we 
may  part  company;  personally,  we  unite.  The  person 
ality  is  not  our  selves,  wherein  is  separateness,  but  our 
self ;  and  the  self  we  are  to  love  is  in  all,  as  in  our  own 
breast.  "  I  shall  be  delighted  with  me  when  it  comes." 
The  woman  was  personal  who  said  that !  She  adored  the 
Infinite  Personality  we  all  share.  As  from  under  the 
old  actor's  mask  sounded  through  his  voice  the  sense  of 
the  character  he  would  set  forth,  so  all  mortal  shapes 


332  PORTRAITS. 

are  masks  of  God.  He  exists  in  countless  persons,  not 
in  three  alone.  In  proportion  as  the  utterance  is  vast 
and  delicate  and  pure,  the  man  is  great  and  divine. 
What  a  personage  is  Shakspeare  by  this  rule  !  Some 
thing  of  whatever  we  handle  will  stick  to  the  palm.  In 
California  a  thief  greased  his  fingers  when  he  came  to 
try  the  sample  of  gold  dust  in  the  cask  at  his  neighbor's 
store.  "  Will  a  man  rob  God?"  He  may  as  much  as 
he  will,  and  the  riches  will  never  decrease.  He  who 
steals  thus  also  bestows.  How  much  Shakspeare  im 
parted  of  the  great  fund  ! 

It  is  said,  one  can  write  what  he  does  not  feel.  The 
poets  enchant  us  with  a  figure  or  spectacle  of  senti 
ments  which  they  do  not  partake.  It  is  all  imagina 
tion  !  But  what  is  imagination  ?  It  is  the  eye  of  the 
soul,  with  which  only  "the  pure  in  heart"  can  see 
either  God  or  man.  It  was  well  said,  "  Show  me  the 
poetry  composed  by  a  bad  man,  and  I  will  show  you 
wherein  it  is  not  poetry."  On  this  principle,  I  think 
Shakspeare  was  good,  as  holy  as  Saint  Augustine, 
without  such  grossness  in  him  to  overlook. 

Who  was  he?  Could  any  one  but  a  patriot  have 
written  as  he  did,  in  "  King  John,"  concerning 

"  That  pale,  that  white-faced  shore"  ? 
In  "  Henry  V."  the  Duke  of  Exeter  says, 

"Never  king  of  England 
Had  nobles  richer,  and  more  loyal  subjects ; 
Whose  hearts  have  left  their  bodies  here  in  England, 
And  lie  pavilioned  in  the  fields  of  France." 

Of  this  vision  of  an  army  across  the  Straits  and  with 
their  tents  on  the  sunny  foreign  plains,  without  a  bugle 


THE   PERSONALITY  OF   SHAKSPEARE.        333 

blown,  foot  on  the  march,  or  sail  spread,  who  can  calcu 
late  the  effect  on  English  courage  since?  The  poet's 
service  to  his  country  all  her  consols  could  not  pay. 
He  was  not  a  poorer  patriot  for  being  cosmopolite.  In 
the  same  play  the  description  of  York's  and  Suffolk's 
death  shows  a  feeling  that  neither  gushed  nor  was 
ashamed  to  flow. 

So  I  call  Shakspeare  not  impersonal,  but  an  immense 
personality.  We  think  the  earth  is  flat,  because  we  see 
not  its  curve ;  and  we  say  Shakspeare  exists  only  as  an 
influence,  because  we  cannot  measure  his  will.  God  is 
held  to  be  impersonal  on  the  same  ground.  What  are 
all  our  faculties  but  as  paper  or  leather  visors  to  trans 
mit  the  Divine  voice  ?  We  must  not  call  such  an  one  a 
showman,  who  is  here  to  please  us  with  his  menagerie 
of  performers,  spangled  riders,  tame  monkej'S,  and  wild 
beasts  !  A  little  water  shut  in  by  a  dam  turns  the  wheels 
of  a  tide-mill.  But  it  was  lifted  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
sun  and  moon.  It  takes  a  greater  energy  to  supply  the 
motive-power  of  the  soul.  Whence  but  from  a  vigor 
equal  to  all  heroic  deeds  could  this  portrait  come  ? 

"  Danger  knows  full  well 
That  Caesar  is  more  dangerous  than  he. 
We  were  two  lions,  littered  in  one  day, 
And  I  the  elder  and  more  terrible." 

Can  one  picture  that  with  which  he  is  in  no  wise  pos 
sessed?  Yet  from  this  pitch  he  can  come  down  to 
"  Audrey,"  as  her  lover  sa3's,  "  a  poor  thing,  but  mine 
own,"  and  fix  her  in  our  memory  as  well  as  he  does  the 
ruler  of  Rome.  What  is  the  width  of  the  solar  system 
to  this  mental  parallax? 


334  PORTRAITS. 

A  provider  of  pleasure  was  Shakspeare,  like  any 
other  story-teller  ;  but  beyond  all  beside,  —  Scott,  Cer 
vantes,  George  Eliot,  or  George  Sand, — he  was  an 
apostle  of  verity,  a  preacher  of  righteousness,  and  a 
son  of  consolation.  What  burial-service  in  all  the 
liturgies  of  the  churches  and  nations  has  a  musical 
sadness  and  solace  to  compare  with  the  song  in  ' k  Cym- 
beline  "  over  the  body  of  Cloten?  What  "  Ode  to  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  "  shall  be  laid  beside  it  ?  Who  was 
Cloten  but  a  foolish  boy,  though  born  prince  ?  Yet  what 
king,  priest,  or  pope  had  such  a  funeral  hymn  ? 

You  tell  me  Shakspeare  was  not  religious  !  Who  ever 
mused  more  deeply  on  the  duty  and  end  of  man?  Had 
he  not  "chewed  the  cud  of  sweet  and  bitter  fancy"? 
Of  what  material  did  he  weave?  Handel,  Haydn,  Mo 
zart,  felt  not  their  subjects  more. 

The  sort  of  man  he  was  ?  One  that  had  loved,  — 
what  particular  man  or  woman  matters  not,  doubtless 
all  women  and  all  men,  hating  none ;  and  if  betrayed 
or  deserted,  he  could  forgive. 

"  Say  that  thou  didst  forsake  me  for  some  fault, 
And  I  will  comment  upon  that  offence; 
Speak  of  my  lameness,  and  I  straight  will  halt, 
Against  thy  reasons  making  no  defence." 

What  JEolian  harp  in  the  window  lamenting  one  gone 
out  of  the  door,  what  "  Eleg}T  in  a  Countiy  Church- 
3'ard,"  what  unheard  chant  of  inward  grief  over  the  un 
seen  grave  where  dead  hopes  lie  buried  never  to  rise 
again,  or  what  obsequies  of  our  own  affections,  to  which 
we  go,  could  in  tender,  mournful  depth  exceed  the 

"  Blow,  blow,  thou  winter  wind ! " 


THE  PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEARE.         335 

But,  as  though  there  were  naught  dismal  in  the  world, 
no  "Amiens"  melancholy,  no  Jaques  or  Hamlet  half 
mad,  how,  without  recollection  of  grief  or  a  wrinkle 
of  pain,  the  same  artist  can  give  us  the  rapture  and 
radiance  of  first  love  in  Ferdinand  and  Miranda,  — 
"  At  first  sight  they  have  changed  eyes." 

Who  shall  try  to  describe  the  same  thing  in  other 
words  ?  Each  is  conscious  only  of  the  sight  with  which 
he  or  she  is  viewed,  and  two  souls  are  one  in  a  single 
look! 

"The  Tempest"  seems  the  last  and  loftiest  of  this 
mountain-chain,  the  Himalaya  of  our  literature,  and 
firm  in  the  world  as  any  of  its  continental  backbones. 
Surely  Shakspeare  is  Prospero. 

But  go  from  magic  to  history ;  and  in  the  historic 
pla}Ts  we  have  not  only  the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  the 
Egyptians  presented  well,  but  the  English  filing  out  in 
squadrons,  and  the  head  Englishman,  with  martial  blood 
in  his  cool  and  fiery  veins,  shaking  a  spear  as  verily  his 
ancestors  did!  Caesar  and  Coriolanus  are  drawn  as 
justly  as  the  Henries.  Egypt  is  perfect  in  "Antony 
and  Cleopatra,"  which  for  sustained  action  is  the  top 
round,  —  the  sentences  a  succession  of  shocks  as  from 
a  battery,  or  photographs  from  a  ship  rocking  on  the 
waves,  or  portraits  taken  by  a  flash. 

"  Far  along 

From  peak  to  peak,  the  rattling  crags  among, 
Leaps  the  live  thunder  " 

of  war,  overridden  with  battling  desires  of  the  poten 
tates  by  whom  it  is  waged.  Yet  Shakspeare  is  not  in 
any  one  of  them,  so  much  as  he  is  the  magician  in  his 


336  PORTRAITS. 

cell  on  the  enchanted  island,  or  in  the  soothsayer,  the 
truth-teller. 

"  In  Nature's  infinite  book  of  secrecy 
A  little  I  have  read." 

Jn  ' '  Antony  and  Cleopatra  "  the  start  is  as  of  a  horse 
at  full  speed,  who  never  slackens  his  rate,  though  the 
rider  holds  bridle,  till  he  touches  the  goal,  while  we  are 
all  taken  en  croupe  on  the  hot  steed. 

Who,  then,  is  Shakspeare  ?  Creator  and  colonizer  of 
the  world  with  a  host  of  beings  more  real  than  any  flesh 
and  blood,  and  a  multiplier  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
globe.  For,  while  mortals  drop  like  leaves,  and  vanish 
like  vapors,  and  pass  as  shadows  of  the  night,  the  planet 
has  a  permanent  population.  It  is  made  up  in  part  of 
actual  heroes,  founders  and  fathers,  martyrs  and  saints. 
In  religion  we  have  Abraham,  Moses,  and  Jesus.  In  art 
we  have  Michael  Angelo,  Raphael,  and  their  compeers. 
In  war  we  have  Alexander  and  Napoleon,  who  are  not 
inclined  yet  quite  to  take  their  leave.  In  law  we  have 
Solon  and  Lycurgus.  In  philosophy  we  have  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  In  music  we  have  Beethoven  and  Mozart. 
We  have  great  men  that  become  myths,  like  Hercules 
and  Achilles ;  and  good  men  that  cast  reflections  of  a 
patriarchal  stature  across  the  landscape,  like  the  Pil 
grims  ;  and  poets,  like  Homer,  Dante,  and  Shakspeare, 
whose  classes  and  types  may  outlive  all  individual 
forms.  What  living  king,  queen,  courtier,  or  states 
man  could  we  not  better  dispense  with  than  with  the 
portraitures  which  show  us  what  a  mistress,  governor, 
gentleman,  or  lady  is  or  ought  to  be  ? 

The  women   are   equal   or   equivalent  to  the   men. 
"  The  ever-womanly"  drew  on  Goethe  and  Shakspeare. 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF   SHAKSPEAEE.         337 

If  only  a  man  could  write  of  woman  as  Shakspeare 
does,  only  from  love  of  woman  and  from  woman's  love 
could  he  write.  Such  is  the  condition  of  manly  genius, 
of  which  no  hater  or  despiser  of  woman  ever  had  one 
spark  !  Woman's  inspiration  prompts  ever}'  best  word 
of  a  man's  pen.  These  word-pictures  of  female  heads 
shall  hold  their  colors  when  the  tints  of  Titian  and 
Murillo  are  pale  on  the  wall.  Who  was  Shakspeare? 
A  man  that  did  justice  to  the  sex,  and  waited  not  for 
the  slowly  revolving  wheels  of  reform. 

It  goes  as  a  proverb,  that  we  know  naught  of  Shak 
speare  the  man.  Yet  I  would  wager  my  life  that  there 
was  no  cruelty  in  him,  but  that  he  was  kind  to  those 
fellow-creatures  whom  we  libel  as  dumb  and  irrational. 
Let  them  answer  for  him, — the  lark  "that  sings  at 
heaven's  gate,"  the  crow  that  "flies  in  heaven's  sweetest 
air,"  and  the  dogs  he  paints  better  than  Landseer,  or 
the  wounded  deer  that  bids  the  rest  of  the  herd 

"  Sweep  on,  ye  fat  and  greasy  citizens  ! " 
Was  he  not  a  song-bird  himself  ? 

"  Or  sweetest  Shakspeare,  fancy's  child, 
Warble  his  native  wood-notes  wild." 

He  was  a  composition  of  man,  woman,  and  child. 
Was  it  the  unprecedented  goodness  of  Jesus  to  women, 
not  a  word  from  his  mouth  being  ever  uttered  against 
one  of  them,  which  made  Chaucer  write, 

"  Christ  was  a  maid  ere  he  was  shapen  as  a  man  "  ? 
Surely  our  poet  too  entered  into  their  very  heart.     "  A 
woman  does  not   forgive  coldness,   even  if  it  be  the 
mask   of  love,"  writes  George   Eliot;    and  while  the 
authorship  of  the  novels  under  this  title  was  in  doubt. 

22 


338  PORTRAITS. 

a  critic  said  no  man  ever  could  have  written  that  sen 
tence.  But  when  the  bad  news  comes  of  Antony's  mar 
riage,  and  Cleopatra  says, 

"  Pity  me,  Charmian,  but  do  not  speak  to  me," 

might  not  as  sharp  an  objection  arise  to  male  author 
ship? 

In  fine,  this  freshest  e^ye  that  ever  looked  on  the 
world  was  of  a  man  who  did  not  disown  or  dishonor 
the  past. 

"  All  before  us  lies  the  way," 

yet  we  must  look  back.  The  great  leaders  are  behind. 
The  doctrines  of  evolution  and  survival  of  the  fit 
test,  which  it  is  the  glory  of  our  Spencer  and  Darwin 
to  expound,  must  have  some  abatement  to  be  square 
with  the  facts.  Antiqunvy  never  loses  its  claim.  The 
old  mountains  are  the  highest ;  and  the  last  one  thrown 
up,  Monte  Nuovo  near  Naples,  has  an  altitude  of  but 
a  few  hundred  feet.  Very  ancient  are  the  mountain 
ridges  and  peaks  of  human  greatness !  The  traveller, 
after  he  has  passed,  turns  to  gaze  on  Mount  Wash 
ington  and  Mont  Blanc.  Mankind  is  a  traveller,  and 
cannot  take  off  its  eyes  from  shapes  that  dwarf  all 
present  illustration  of  its  glories  and  aims,  —  those  of 
Socrates  and  Plato,  of  the  Hindoo  Sakya  Mouni  and 
the  Hebrew  Messiah.  One  of  these  memorable  bene 
factors  is  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  high  up  in  his  stature 
to  any  Greek,  Roman,  or  Jewish  level,  chief  intellect 
ual  influence  of  the  modern  world.  Was  he  a  trifler 
because  an  inditer  and  actor  of  plays?  The  universe 
is  God's  play  or  his  playground  !  All  our  work  will  be 
play  in  paradise.  We  wait  but  to  perfect  our  powers  of 


THE   PERSONALITY    OF   SHAKSPEAKE.         339 

thought  and  love  for  that.  Shakspeare  takes  up  the  line 
between  sacred  literature  and  profane.  Do  the  New 
Testament  writers  mean  to  express  the  inferiority  of 
matter  to  spirit  by  their  picture  of  a  final  conflagration 
of  the  world?  They  surpass  not  in  sublimity  Pros- 
pero's  speech  to  Ferdinand,  — 

"  The  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve  ; 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind  :   we  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep." 

Did  he  think  that  was  the  end, — he  that  put  into 
Hamlet's  soliloquy  the  words,  "  to  sleep,  perchance  to 
dream,"  and  who  wrote, 

"Angels  and  ministers  of  grace  defend  us  ! " 

and  to  the  priest's  objurgation  of  doom  and  "  ground 
unsanctified  "  for  Ophelia's  burial  makes  Laertes  reply, 

"  A  ministering  angel  shall  my  sister  be 
When  thou  liest  howling  "  ? 

The  poet  knew  how  to  reverse  an  ecclesiastical  decis 
ion.  What  a  refuge  he  affords,  in  his  region  of  beauty, 
from  the  pretence  of  sectarists  to  settle  questions  by 
other  authority  than  the  human  mind !  Renan  speaks 
of  les  hommes  ranges,  the  drilled  men.  Shakspeare  is  a 
liberator  ;  and  Milton  the  Puritan,  with  his 

"  Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  fame," 

is  a  eulogist  of  this  spiritual  renewer,  in  any  one  of 
whose  lines  is  more  delight  for  us  than  in  the  most 
flattering  compliment  we  ever  received.  He  is  an  auto- 
biographer.  He  is  as  well  known  as  anybody  that  ever 


340  PORTRAITS. 

lived.  He  was  a  transcendent  moralist  before  tran 
scendentalism  was  born.  But  morality  with  him  is 
a  principle,  not  a  rule.  Was  Desdemona  the  uliar" 
she  was  called  by  Othello?  When  the  disciples  ask 
Jesus  who  had  sinned,  the  parents  or  the  blind  man, 
and  he  answers,  "Neither,"  would  not  an  Orthodox  pro 
fessor  have  to  convict  the  Master  of  falsehood,  and  say, 
"Both"  ?  By  either  teacher,  the  great  head  of  the  Church 
or  the  humble  pla}~er  in  the  booth,  instinct  was  alike  re 
vered,  and  by  no  dogma  or  wilful  standard  was  it  set 
aside.  Principles  cannot,  like  cattle,  be  put  in  pound, 
nor  right  become  a  rut.  Jesus  orders  swords,  and  con 
demns  their  use.  The  Quaker  may  drop  his  custom  with 
his  coat,  when  Sumter  is  under  fire.  "Nice  customs 
courtesy  to  great  kings  ;  "  and  those  kings  are  laws  by 
which  all  establishments  are  overridden  or  undercut. 
Man  is  a  law  to  himself.  One  ma}'  honestly  call  for  a 
world's  convention  of  peace,  yet,  in  peculiar  circum 
stances,  long  for  the  gunship  Canandaigua  to  open  her 
guns  in  Samana  Bay,  on  San  Domingo  Isle.  We  must 
know  the  whole  story  before  we  can  be  sure  whether 
certain  acts  or  intimacies  of  human  creatures,  be  they 
men  or  women,  are  right  or  wrong.  Circumstances  do 
not  alter  cases,  for  every  case  is  determined  from  the 
centre  of  the  soul's  point  of  view.  The  real  person 
is  identical  with  the  real  truth.  From  the  serious  smil 
ing  poet  none  of  this  wisdom  was  hid. 

The  truth,  which  Pilate  asked  for,  is  to  be  told  at  all 
times,  3*et  it  can  never  be  fully  told.  It  is  not  fact,  but 
a  spirit  in  and  over  all  details.  All  persons  do  not 
have  property  in  a  fact.  It  may  be  mine  or  yours, 
and  fitly  kept  in  an  iron  vault  or  in  the  safe  of  your  or 


THE   PEKSONALITY   OF    SHAKSPEAKE.         341 

my  mind.  We  must  be  true  to  persons  ;  but  telling  their 
just  secrets  is  how  false  !  Judas  spoke  the  truth  when  he 
told  where  Jesus  was  to  be  found  ;  in  his  veracity  he 
was  an  informer,  a  spy,  and  a  traitor,  deserving  the  low 
est  place  in  hell,  Dante  being  judge.  Of  all  things, 
hatred  and  selfishness  are  the  most  untrue.  How  loving, 
unselfish,  and  true  Desdemona  was  in  shielding  her  hus 
band,  and  exposing  herself,  —  poor,  tender  buckler ! 
The  exposure  was  eternal  honor  for  her.  So  we  will  not 
disparage  Shakspeare,  nor  lower  her  from  her  niche  of 
fame. 


342  PORTRAITS. 


II. 

CHAINING,   THE  PREACHER. 

IT  will  soon  be  thirty-seven  years  since  the  subject  of 
this  essay  died,  or  disappeared.  But  I  observe,  after 
longer  lapses  of  time,  the  figures  walk  down  from  their 
frames  in  our  parlors  or  in  Faneuil  Hall  for  every  new 
crisis  of  action  or  thought.  The  picture  on  our  walls 
whose  beauty  sinks  into  and  becomes  part  of  us  is  a 
living  blessing ;  how  much  more  the  fresh  incarnation 
of  a  good  and  great  man  !  My  sketch  of  Channing  has 
a  background  in  my  own  experience  far  away.  It  must 
be  nearly  sixty  years  since,  in  the  town  of  Freeport, 
Maine,  I  heard  my  father  and  uncle  talking  with  much 
animation  of  a  preacher  whose  voice  had  been  Heard 
somewhere  in  the  neighborhood,  and  some  printed  word 
also  from  whom  had  reached  their  eyes  ;  and  the  lift  and 
lightening  of  their  faces  seemed  to  the  little  boy  to 
extend  to  the  landscape  and  embrace  the  horizon.  To 
men  of  the  present  generation  it  were  hard  to  conceive 
of  the  cloud  of  a  gloomy  theology  then  brooding  over 
New  England.  The  jo}~  of  nry  relatives  in  their  new 
found  teacher  of  libert}7  and  love  was  for  me,  at  seven 
years  of  age,  nothing  less  than  the  removal  of  a  curse. 
When,  of  a  hot  summer  afternoon,  in  the  ill-ventilated 
church  women  fainted  and  were  borne  out,  m}'  childish 
thought  was  that  they  had  been  summoned  to  the  dread- 


CHAINING,    THE   PREACHER.  343 

ful  judgment  the  minister  had  just  preached.  I  used  to 
walk  and  wander  alone,  repeatihg  for  the  hundredth  time 
to  myself,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner,"  although 
of  what  particular  sin  I  had  committed  I  was  not  aware, 
only  I  could  imagine  no  escape  from  the  universal 
depravity  and  doom.  In  the  intermission  of  service, 
.my  father's  sister  having  been  the  minister's  wife,  how 
closely  I  was  kept  at  her  house  or  our  room  !  But  occa 
sionally  being  allowed  of  a  Sunday  afternoon  to  go  to 
a  rocky  height  in  m}'  father's  pasture,  and  take  turns 
with  him  looking  through  a  spy-glass  after  the  sails  of 
his  vessels  expected  home  from  sea,  I  had  a  pleasure 
which  prayer  or  sermon  seldom  gave.  There  was  annu 
ally  a  trip  from  the  village  out  among  the  nearest  of  the 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  islands  in  the  Penobscot 
Bay,  which  excursion  bound  the  seasons  in  a  beautiful 
ring  whose  gems  were  the  sparkling  waves.  But  I 
remember  no  delight  like  that  of  the  new  dispensation 
of  religion  by  the  prophet  whom  I  so  longed  to  see. 
Drawn  at  length,  it  ma}^  be  by  that  very  impulse,  in  due 
course  to  the  Divinity  School  in  Cambridge,  the  Fed 
eral  Street  Church  in  Boston  became  straightway  a 
magnet.  I  listened  to  the  famous  Liberal,  went  to  see 
him  in  Newport  and  in  Portsmouth,  Rhode  Island,  and 
on  my  settlement  found  but  a  street  between  his  resi 
dence  and  my  own.  For  the  last  five  years  of  his  life 
I  visited  him  or  received  calls  from  him,  walked  and 
talked  in  his  company,  discussed  with  him  all  the  sub 
jects  on  which  he  loved  to  dwell,  and  now  am  glad,  as  in 
some  humble  way  among  the  trustees  of  his  reputation, 
to  testify  of  the  traits  of  his  disposition  and  his  mind. 
But  his  bodily  feature  and  bearing  must  not  be  passed 


344  PORTRAITS. 

by.  Charming  was  insignificant  in  figure.  Short, 
slender,  thin,  as  I  knew  him,  scarce  more  than  a  hun 
dred  pounds  of  flesh  clothed  and  served  in  him  the 
informing  soul.  One  introduced  to  him  exclaimed  in 
amazement  at  the  slight  stature  of  the  mighty  preacher, 
"I  thought  you  were  six  feet  tall."  Certainly  in  the 
desk  he  was  of  a  commanding  height.  But  he  had  to 
wrap  his  weak  chest  in  many  a  covering,  when  he  went 
out,  against  the  damp  and  cold,  and  was  very  often 
only  able  to  pace  up  and  down  on  the  sidewalk  before 
his  dwelling  in  the  sun,  till  his  slowly  moving  form  be 
came  one  of  the  sights  in  Boston.  But  he  might  have 
said  to  any  one,  as  Napoleon  to  the  marshal  who 
reached  to  the  Emperor  a  book  from  an  upper  shelf 
remarking,  "  I  am  higher  than  you,  sire," —  "Longer, 
not  higher  !  "  His  eyes  were  so  communicative  that  his 
friends  disputed  about  the  color,  which  was  lost  in  the 
expression.  Where  was  the  hiding  of  the  power  of 
that  marvellous  voice,  —  one  of  the  three  most  eloquent, 
says  Emerson,  he  has  heard ;  and  surety  like  none  be 
side,  having  more  in  it  of  the  violin  than  the  flute,  yet 
with  liquid  notes  such  as  Wilhelmj  or  Joiachim  can 
fetch  from  the  strings,  and  with  an  habitual  rising  inflec 
tion,  rather  than  cadence,  at  the  end  of  the  sentence, 
which  seemed  to  raise  every  hearer  to  the  skies.  It 
melted  and  resounded,  was  clear  when  it  whispered,  and 
a  clarion  when  it  rang.  He  told  me  that  with  speaking 
for  many  j-ears  new  tones  had  been  developed  in  his 
voice.  Ver}T  peculiar  in  its  charm  was  his  reading  of 
the  Scriptures  and  of  the  hymns,  of  which  Emerson  sa}'S 
again,  "  He  read  into  them  more  than  I  could  afterwards 
find."  When  on  an  Easter  Sunday  the  line  left  his  lips, 


CHANNING,   THE   PREACHER.  345 

"  Angel,  roll  the  stone  away," 

the  stone  never,  in  the  infinite  distance,  seemed  to 
cease  to  roll. 

"  Vain  are  the  charms  and  faint  the  rays 

The  brightest  creatures  boast, 
And  all  their  grandeur  and  their  praise 
Are  in  Thy  presence  lost." 

He  threw  an  insignificance  on  the  first  three  lines  in 
amazing  contrast  with  the  majestic  close.  He  had  a 
theory  about  public  speaking  which  he  expounded  for 
my  edification,  that  it  was  simply  a  matter  of  light  and 
shade  in  the  sentence.  But  I  fancy  that  only  with  the 
particular  artist,  as  with  Titian  or  Tintoretto,  the  effect 
could  ever  come.  However  sensitive  to  just  expression 
of  his  thought,  he  was  more  concerned  with  what  he 
said,  and  to  whom,  than  how  he  said  it.  An  unbeliever 
at  his  house  complaining  of  Christ's  severity  to  the 
Pharisees,  Channing  turned  to  the  passage,  and  recited 
the  Wo  upon  Wo,  until  the  unbeliever  cried  out,  "  I 
withdraw  my  objection  if  he  spoke  in  that  tone  !  "  In 
deed  in  sweet  voices  was  the  advent  of  the  new  faith. 
Edward  Everett,  whose  own  utterance  was  such  an 
entrancing  spell,  said  he  firmly  believed  Buckminster's 
voice  the  most  melodious  that  ever  issued  from  human 
lips.  Henry  Clay's  voice  was  called  a  band  of  music ; 
Webster's  was  a  trumpet,  Channing's  a  harp. 

But  it  is  the  man's  interior  I  would  portray ;  and 
character,  even  more  than  genius,  was  his  mark.  He 
had  not  so  much  visions  as  views.  One  long  fit  of 
contemplation  and  reflection  was  his  life.  His  intellect 
was  of  the  ideal  stamp.  But  one,  regarding  his 
thoughts  as  rather  derivative  than  original,  somewhat 


346  PORTRAITS. 

cynically  called  him  a  "  potted  Plato."  He  shared  the 
Platonism  which  existed  before  Plato  was  born. 

Leaving  his  philosophy,  I  note  in  his  character,  first, 
its  height.  He  suggested  the  zenith.  He  told  me 
what  a  relief  always  it  was  for  him  to  look  up  from  the 
troubled  earth  into  the  unruffled  sky.  His  elevation 
was  so  habitual  that  going  to  see  him  was  like  mount 
ing  an  observatory ;  you  must  ascend,  he  could  not 
come  down,  and  you  found  him  adjusting  his  instrument, 
and  caring  only  that  you  should  look  through  the  long 
reflector  with  himself.  As  Wordsworth  said  of  Milton, 

"  His  soul  was  like  a  star  and  dwelt  apart." 

Charming  could  not  turn  his  eye  to  you  without  turning 
his  head.  As  on  an  elevated  railway  la}'  his  track.  Peo 
ple  were  vexed  at  having  to  go  up  so  high  to  get  noth 
ing,  as  they  sometimes  said ;  for,  with  all  the  love  and 
wisdom  in  him  like  a  climate,  there  was  no  flash,  no  sur 
prising  play  of  wit,  little  original  suggestion,  and  not 
the  least  condescension  to  a  lower  state.  Edward  T. 
Taylor,  that  prince  and  playfellow  of  imagination,  of 
whom  Channing  said  he  knew  all  about  the  Platonic 
wings,  admitted  Channing's  talents,  but  denied  his  edu 
cation  !  He  was  not,  like  Taylor,  a  graduate  of  the 
university  of  the  world. 

I  note,  next,  Channing's  simplicity,  of  which  Fenelon 
had  not  more.  Returning  from  a  great  dinner,  he  said 
it  was  an  enormous  sacrifice  to  the  flesh,  but  he  was 
comforted  to  find  how  little  of  it  was  consumed,  and 
he  spoke  as  if  he  had  been  in  a  strange  land  among  the 
Fijis  and  got  safely  back.  Taking  wine  one  day  at  his 
medical  brother's  prescription,  he  observed  that  it  tasted 


CHANGING,    THE   PREACHER.  847 

as  he  supposed  brandy  must,  he  was  so  unused  to  it. 
Going  out  of  his  entiy,  he  put  on  a  young  companion's 
hat,  and  as  it  went  down  over  his  ears,  turned  and 
said,  "  I  did  not  suppose  jour  head  was  bigger  than 
mine."  Being  invited  to  preach  a  New  York  dedica 
tion-sermon,  he  declined  from  lack  of  sympathy  with 
the  building  of  fine  churches.  He  needed  no  cathedral 
aids  to  make  his  own  service  impressive.  "  When  he 
spoke  of  the  human  soul,"  says  Taylor,  "I  thought  I 
should  have  gone  over  the  gallery ; "  and  he  added, 
4 '  Hear  such  preaching  as  that  and  go  to  hell  after 
all?"  The  flowers  in  his  garden  cheered  him  not  for 
their  own  sake,  but  as  prophecies  of  a  better  condition 
of  mankind.  The  ocean  delivered  his  soul  of  strug 
gling  thoughts,  and  accompanied  with  its  resonance  his 
anthems  of  praise.  His  quality  was  not  the  conscious 
and  affected  simpleness  which  Matthew  Arnold  satir 
izes,  but  the  Homeric  simplicit}^  the  same  essayist  com 
mends.  Not  a  smart  sentence,  rolled  under  the  tongue 
and  calculated  for  effect,  or  intended  as  wit,  can  be 
quoted  from  his  books.  Like  Paul,  he  often  said  "  I ;  " 
but  that  pronoun  was  never  his  object,  rarely  his  sub 
ject,  always  his  instrument  and  means.  As  he  said  of 
Milton,  "  he  rose  without  effort  or  affectation  to  the 
style  of  an  apostle."  It  was  a  scriptural  st}'le  and  the 
Master's  manner.  The  ponderous  Johnsonian  method, 
prevalent  in  his  time,  of  approaching  as  by  siege-par 
allels  a  subject,  he  broke  up  with  an  unprecedented  di 
rectness,  and,  as  one  said,  proposed,  like  General  Grant, 
to  move  immediately  on  the  enemy's  works.  There 
was  nothing  mystical  in  his  mode.  His  page  is  a  limpid, 
rushing  stream.  He  did  not  kindle  by  condensing,  nor 


848  PORTRAITS. 

as  with  a  compound  blow-pipe  could  he  fuse  refractory 
substances,  but  by  dint  of  the  reality  and  the  repeating 
of  his  convictions  won  his  way;  and  it  takes  now  a 
good  deal  of  him  or  of  his  writing  to  appreciate  his 
property,  as  it  does  a  large  quantity  of  the  air  to  get 
the  blue  of  the  sky.  He  was  devoid  of  ambition. 
Fenelon's  wish  to  be  unknown,  Wesley's  to  have  no 
monument,  and  the  hiding  of  Moses's  tomb,  found 
echoes  in  his  heart.  He  scarce  looked  to  see  where  his 
shot  struck,  brave  marksman  as  he  was.  A  higher 
than  any  personal  aim  is  the  lesson  of  his  life.  He  was 
the  best  of  listeners,  and  not  talkative  himself.  He 
that  is  greedy  of  an  audience  has  nothing  to  say  !  A 
lad  brought  him  a  book  with  the  publishers'  request  to 
dedicate  it  to  him.  He  replied  at  the  threshold,  u  Boy, 
take  it  away ! "  He  asked  people  in  church,  if  they 
could,  to  suppress  their  cough,  conversing,  as  with 
friends,  from  the  desk.  He  did  not  read  notices  of 
himself  in  the  public  press  ;  and  when  a  dear  brother 
clergyman  had  printed  a  review  of  his  book,  he  asked 
his  wife  to  read  to  him  not  the  eulogistic  but  the  criti 
cal  parts.  He  did  not  reply  to  attacks,  fearing,  he  said, 
the  lowering  effect  of  lingering  about  his  own  writ 
ings,  and  thinking  "men  were  enslaved  to  none  so 
much  as  to  themselves."  He  but  wanted,  as  Edmund 
Burke  told  his  electors,  to  be  allowed  to  go  on.  An 
almost  incredible  childlikeness  is  affirmed  in  some 
authentic  anecdotes  of  him.  After  trying  in  vain  to 
make  some  ladies  understand  a  point  he  was  making, 
he  relapsed  slowly  into  his  chair,  saying,  "  I  wish  wo 
men  had  more  mind  !  "  He  erased  one  word,  "  very," 
from  a  letter  conveying  a  compliment  to  a  friend  from 


CHANNING,    THE    PREACHER.  349 

others,  that  his  statement  might  be  exactly  correct ;  and 
he  rewrote  a  second  and  third  time  his  articles,  not 
to  make  them  more  taking,  but  more  true.  He  said  to 
kme,  "  I  hope  prosperity  will  not  relax  your  study ;  I  do 
not  think  it  has  mine." 

The  sincerity  which  is  the  offspring  of  simplicity  was 
conspicuous  in  him ;  and  he  stated  the  ground  of  sin 
cerity  as  being  interested  in  what  one  had  to  say.  He 
did  not  care  to  letter  aught  but  what  was  precious  to  his 
own  soul,  what  he  was,  and  had  lived  and  loved  before 
he  spoke.  Many  a  boisterous  speaker,  we  feel,  has  no 
affection  in  his  own  heart  for  the  positions  he  so  proudly 
takes,  and  would,  like  a  retained  law}~er,  argue  the  other 
side,  the  next  day,  with  equal  zeal.  No  such  loud  foren 
sic  pleader  or  platform-pretender  was  our  true  divine. 
He  could  not  bear  what  was  underhand.  "Stop!" 
cried  he  to  one  talking  scandal  of  the  absent,  "  or  I 
shall  go  and  tell  them  every  word  you  say."  When  one 
informed  him  that  he  had  written  an  anonymous  letter  to 
a  dealer  in  intoxicating  liquors,  Channing  answered,  "  I 
am  sorry  so  good  a  man  as  you  should  have  done  that !  " 
This  frankness  made  him  never  so  young  and  enterpris 
ing  as  at  threescore.  "  Were  I  to  begin  life  again,"  said 
an  English  statesman.  "  it  would  be  as  an  agitator." 
Theologically  the  bo}T  Channing  was  the  conservative,  so 
far  as  he  was  such  at  all,  and  the  radical  was  the  man. 
But  the  youth  had  not  got  through  college  or  finished 
his  college  part  before,  like  Tennyson's  sailor-boy, 

"  He  whistled  to  the  morning-star." 

He  had  that  sign  of  all  greatness,  gravitation  to  the 
truth.     In  this  he  resembled  Webster,  Lincoln,  Galla- 


350  PORTRAITS. 

tin,  Marshall,  and  other  great  men  of  state.  He  as  well 
as  they  knew  that  if  the  centre  be  unstable,  or  the  ful 
crum  slip,  the  purchase  will  fail.  Channing's  passion  was 
to  see  how  the  thing  stood.  At  Naushon,  being  found 
with  a  cue  in  his  hand  at  a  small  billiard-table,  playing 
all  by  himself,  he  said,  as  if  to  excuse  himself,  "  I  am 
trying  to  find  out  the  principle  of  this  game."  But 
that  was  his  invariable  question,  for  ivory  ball  or  great 
globe.  After  three  persons  of  his  family  had  tried  in 
vain  to  make  the  toast  savory,  when  he  was  unwell,  he 
said,  "  It  is  not  good,  — the  perfect  is  what  all  our  life 
we  seek  after  and  never  attain." 

But  in  this  image  I  must  trace  not  only  veracit}',  but 
sensibility  as  well,  —  a  trait  which  gravity  like  his  might 
conceal  from  some.  Tenderness  must  have  its  shield ; 
and  the  gentlest  persons  may  pass  for  cold,  while  those 
who  are  profuse  in  offers  to  such  as  need  no  help  have 
an  oily  courtesy  running  like  the  ointment  over  Aaron's 
beard  and  to  his  garments'  skirts,  and  get  the  credit  of 
unction  and  warmth.  Real  sentiment  appears  in  its  un 
conscious  escapes.  Channing  told  me  it  was  the  mobility 
of  feature  in  Dickens  with  which  he  was  struck.  The 
coarse  and  profane  language  he  hears  in  his  journey, 
while  yet  a  3'outh,  "cuts  him  to  the  heart."  Describ 
ing  the  effect  of  a  dancing  girlish  vision  on  his  young 
mind,  he  lays  his  hand  on  his  wife's  arm  to  say  that 
only  in  his  fancy  the  picture  lay.  Walking  with  him 
around  Boston  Common,  we  met  a  woman  remembered 
as  an  admirable  teacher  and  mother,  giving  two  sons, 
Charles  and  James,  to  the  war.  After  we  had  traversed 
the  street,  interchanging  remarks  on  various  themes,  he 
paused  and  said,  "  What  a  sweet  expression  on  Mrs. 


CHAINING,    THE   PREACHER.  351 

Lowell's  face ;  it  has  not  gone  from  me  3ret !  "  His 
emotion  was  not  demonstration,  but  abstinence  from  any 
aim  at  effect.  He  had  atmosphere,  but  no  airs.  He  was 
not  absent-minded,  but  absorbed.  He  walked  the  streets 
with  e}~es  that  saw  not  the  shows  in  the  shop-windows. 
Yet  humorous  observation,  in  his  carry  years  keen  and 
in  later  ones  subordinated  in  him,  was  never  quite  out 
grown.  He  hits  off  the  schoolmistress  like  Cruikshank 
or  Hogarth.  He  made  merry  over  an  attorney-general's 
criticisms  on  his  philanthropy  in  the  martyr  Lovejoy's 
case,  and  over  a  certain  doctor  of  divinity's  assault  on  the 
Transcendentalists,  Channing  included.  At  the  ordina 
tion  of  Barnard  and  Gray  to  the  ministry  at  large,  in  Bos 
ton,  all  the  world  had  come  to  hear  Channing's  charge. 
Tuckerman  preached  for  an  hour  and  a  half.  After  the 
services  Parkman,  the  clerical  wag  of  the  city,  said, 
"Brother  Tuckerman,  your  sermon  was  excellent,  but 
undeniably  too  long.  Brother  Channing,  was  n't  Brother 
Tuckerman  too  long?  "  "  Ha,  ha,"  said  Channing,  who 
was  not  going  to  be  caught  in  this  trap  to  hurt  his 
friend  Tuckerman' s  feelings,  —  "  ha,  ha,"  with  that  dry 
laugh  in  his  throat  which  was  all  he  could  attain,  while 
he  knocked  together  the  shoes  that  held  his  emaciated 
feet,  "  Brother  Parkman,  were  you  tired?  I  was  tired 
before  Brother  Tuckerman  began  !  " 

Let  me  recall,  next,  Channing's  spirituality,  with  but 
enough  of  the  mortal  in  him  to  hold  it  down,  his  ascen 
sion  being  continual,  and  he  himself  but  anchored  be 
low  and  tugging  like  a  balloon  at  the  last  binding  cord, 
yet  with  no  flutter  or  levity  but  incomparable  weight 
and  moment  in  his  mien  as  he  swayed  and  ever  threat 
ened  to  rise.  Some  in  their  direction  go  from  within 


352  PORTRAITS. 

without,  others  from  without  within  ;  and  these  last  never 
get  in.  The  soul  must  react  for  experience  to  become 
the  master-light.  Charming  had  found  the  centre. 
With  a  presence  like  Washington's  he  overcame  the  com 
pany  and  filled  the  room.  No  man  more  respected  other 
minds,  but  his  own  made  a  temple  wherever  he  was. 
Naught  indecent  was  possible  before  a  sanctity  so  com 
plete.  When  a  gross  fault  had  occurred  in  his  social 
circle,  he  repudiated  the  politic  concealments  with  which 
in  modern  society  scandals  about  distinguished  persons 
are  sometimes  covered  up.  Materialism  would  have 
been  an  organic  anomaly  for  him. 

Serenity  in  him  was  manifest  no  less,  }'et  with  the 
swiftness  of  a  courser  well-trained.  He  observed  the 
Shakspeare-player's  "temperance;"  and  my  professor 
of  rhetoric  classed  him  with  Robert  Hall  as  an  example 
of  the  dignified  style.  Boston  ought  to  give  to  him, 
on  the  score  of  public  merits,  a  statue,  as  to  Franklin, 
Webster,  Everett,  Sumner,  and  Mann ;  and  the  bronze 
should  tell  in  its  outward  composure  his  inward  poise 
and  peace,  the  same  that  appeared  in  Borromeo,  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  Savonarola,  Thomas  a  Kempis,  Jacob 
Bohme,  or  Jonathan  Edwards,  — for  it  is  limited  to  no 
sect,  nor,  more  than  one  of  Raphael's  pictures,  can  be 
a  subject  of  dispute.  That  assurance,  which  exceeds  all 
vicarious  insurance,  was  in  his  breast.  The  moral  was 
dominant  in  his  mind.  A  Christian  Cato,  if  he  was 
censor  it  was  first  in  his  own  soul.  This  watchman  on 
the  walls  was  ever  on  his  good  behavior  to  himself  and 
on  his  guard,  never  threw  the  reins  on  the  horse's  neck, 
and  did  not  become  quite  a  jo}'fully  emancipated  child, 
but  kept  in  his  manners  some  rigidity  and  restraint, 


CHAINING,    THE   PEEACHEE.  353 

which  was  contagious.  Yet,  though  sober,  he  was  not 
sombre.  He  was  an  immense  personality  and  motive- 
power,  perhaps  the  chief  religious  momentum  of  his 
time,  a  Miltonic  self,  not  so  much  a  reporter  of  the 
spirit  as  he  was  the  thing  reported  on  and  the  report. 
I  call  him  not  religious  ;  he  was  religion,  and  "  righteous 
overmuch."  He  was  the  core  of  piety,  of  which  we  are 
on  the  edge !  He  thinks  he  is  too  serious,  struggles 
against  his  earnest  bent,  complains  of  his  inaptness  for 
the  play  of  human  friendship  and  converse,  tries  to  be 
more  familiar,  but  never  feels  far  from  his  Infinite  Friend. 
Like  Christ,  he  continues  in  prayer  all  night  or  all  day. 

He  had  a  soldier's  courage  to  challenge  injurious  dog 
mas  and  maintain  right  of  judgment  for  the  private  soul ; 
and  he  affirmed,  if  he  had  done  aught  worthy  of  remem 
brance  after  he  should  go,  it  was  in  his  withstanding  the 
imposing  of  a  tyrannical  yoke  in  the  name  of  religion. 
The  stuff  of  a  martyr  was  in  that  frail  form.  As  he 
stood  in  the  arena,  so  he  would  have  stood  at  the  stake. 
More  hero  than  poet  was  he  in  his  make.  Subtle  cor 
respondences,  nature's  cipher-despatches,  he  was  not 
keen  to  read ;  nor  did  he  poetically  penetrate  the  inner 
sense  of  land  and  sea,  whose  outward  aspect  was  to 
him  such  joy.  Controversy  left  in  him  no  muddy  sedi 
ment  or  malign  heat.  All  dispute  was  to  him  a  break 
ing  bubble,  the  froth  of  the  hour. 

So  the  attribute  of  liberality  is  pre-eminently  his. 
The  Universalists  were  a  very  odious  and  unpopular 
body  in  the  Church  forty  years  ago.  But  when  they 
were  assailed  as  holding  forth  a  doctrine  licentious  and 
sure  to  corrupt,  he  averred  how  lofty  was  their  idea  of 
the  final  triumph  of  good.  When  the  Perfectionists 

23 


354  PORTRAITS. 

were  charged  with  like  lax  assumption,  he  rebated  their 
antagonists  for  proclaiming  the  necessity  of  sin,  and 
accorded  with  Father  Taylor,  who,  on  being  asked  if  he 
really  thought  anybody  had  ever  lived  as  good  as  Jesus 
Christ,  answered,  "  Yes,  millions,"  and  laughed  at  some 
mournful  confessor  at  a  Unitarian  conference,  as  busy 
rolling  his  dirty  beetle-ball  of  sin.  Channing  died  in  the 
perfectionist  faith  of  the  perfectibility  and  final  actual 
perfection  of  every  human  soul.  In  1840,  charging 
John  S.  Dwight,  our  Boston  judge  of  music,  for  a  min 
istry  in  Northampton,  he  bids  him  visit  the  spot  where 
Edwards  brought  forth  his  profound  works,  and,  despite 
all  difference  with  his  opinions,  breathe  the  consecra 
tion  which  his  name  had  spread  over  the  place,  and  emu 
late  ' '  his  single-hearted  devotion  of  his  great  powers  to 
the  investigation  of  truth."  So  to  the  doctrinal  antipodes 
Channing's  charity  reached.  "His  eulogy  on  the  good 
Roman  Catholic  bishop,  Cheverus,  was  well  answered  by 
the  tolling  of  the  Catholic  bell  over  the  way  from  the 
spot  where  the  great  Protestant  left  his  handful  of  clay, 
with  a  chiming  which  they  both  at  once  must  have  heard 
in  heaven.  Channing  had  never  taken  part  in  denounc 
ing  Rome.  Does  it  not  announce  the  millennium  when 
Orthodoxy  accepts  the  Free-thinker  as  a  saint  ?  Moses 
Stuart,  on  reading  Channing's  Memoirs,  said,  "I  did 
not  know  what  a  devoted  man  he  was."  If  nobody 
sends  us  to  hell  for  diversity  of  opinion  now,  it  is  an 
exemption  none  did  so  much  as  Channing  to  earn. 

Because  he  said,  "I  am  little  of  a  Unitarian,  but 
willingly  bear  the  name  as  a  title  of  reproach,"  some 
have  claimed  him  as  Orthodox,  and  even  fancied  a 
Trinity  lurking  in  his  thought.  This  his  nephew  and 


CHANNING,    THE    PREACHER.  355 

biographer,  William  Henry  Channing,  denounces  as  a 
calumny ;  and  his  only  son,  Dr.  William  F.  Channing, 
declares  he  departed  from  Orthodox  views  more  widely 
the  longer  he  lived.  He  himself  explicitly  pronounces 
that  there  is  ' '  no  trace  of  a  Trinity  in  nature  or  the 
soul,"  while  he  discovers  also  in  the  Bible  only  the 
Supreme  One.  It  were  as  plausible  to  claim  Lyman 
Beecher  for  a  Unitarian.  But  he  was  imprisoned  in 
no  Unitarian  denomination  or  sect,  but  a  Liberal  and 
catholic  in  the  ranks.  When  a  young  man,  Mr.  Eustis, 
afterwards  teacher  of  the  Freedmen  on  the  islands  off 
the  Georgia  shore,  being  called  to  a  Unitarian  pulpit, 
wished  to  be  excused  from  administering  the  elements 
of  bread  and  wine  in  what  is  named  the  Lord's  Sup 
per,  and  a  barrier  against  his  admission  was  raised  on 
this  account,  Channing  took  the  Quaker  ground,  and 
protested  against  raising  a  wall  of  form  to  block  any 
faithful  ministry  out. 

He  differed  with  Theodore  Parker  about  the  miracles 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  his  place  in  the  creation.  He 
thought  no  sj'stem  of  morals  or  of  abstract  ideas  could, 
as  a  substitute  for  the  historic  religion,  have  power  to 
redeem  mankind.  Yet  he  sent  his  love  to  Parker,  and 
exhorted  him  to  "  pour  out  all  his  heart."  One  day, 
as  I  entered  his  room,  I  found  him  reading  Hazlitt's 
Essays.  He  remarked,  "  Hazlitt  has  said  hard  things 
of  me,  and  I  am  taking  rny  revenge  by  stud}~ing  his 
books."  Hazlitt  had  ridiculed  him  for  dividing  great 
ness  into  three  orders  and  putting  himself  at  the  head, 
in  his  article  on  Napoleon,  that  most  famous  of  his 
literary  attempts.  Hazlitt,  though  English,  was  a 
partisan  of  Bonaparte,  Channing's  treatment  of  whom 


356  PORTRAITS. 

seemed  so  harsh  as  to  make  the  only  instance  of  il- 
liberalit}*,  or  rather  narrowness,  we  might  cite ;  and 
Channing  himself,  in  the  preface  to  his  works,  as  if 
touched  in  conscience  by  the  criticism  he  had  launched, 
begs  the  reader  to  notice  the  date  of  that  piece. 

Let  me  indicate  the  claim  of  Channing's  literary  work. 
Its  earnestness  all  will  admit.  It  had,  too,  the  great 
merit  of  continuity.  It  was  a  flow,  a  flight,  and  a  flame. 
The  stream,  the  bird,  and  the  sun  are  its  types.  It 
was  loft}*,  and  had  a  long  wind.  With  some  of  his  lit 
erary  judgments  it  were  easy  to  find  fault,  as,  for  ex 
ample,  that  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost"  is  "  perhaps  the 
noblest  monument  of  human  genius."  Against  such  a 
verdict  the  shades  of  Homer  and  ^Esclrylus  and  Dante 
and  Goethe  protest !  His  Election  Sermon,  as  fine  a 
rapture  on  the  theme  of  mental  liberty  as  exists  in  any 
tongue,  shows  in  its  best  state  this  at  once  running, 
soaring,  and  burning  qualit}*.  That  on  "  Partaking  the 
Divine  Nature  "  is  unsurpassed  as  a  strain  of  transport 
ing  piet}^,  while  the  essay  on  Fenelon,  in  its  examina 
tion  of  the  great  Catholic's  doctrine  of  self-denial,  is 
his  best  attempt  at  criticism,  and  remains  sound  and 
unanswerable  to  this  day. 

As  a  prophet  of  human  nature  he  must  mainty  stand. 
He  early  discarded  the  dogma  of  total  depravit}7.  When 
he  was  a  lad  his  father  took  him  along  in  the  chaise  as 
he  went  to  hear  a  famous  preacher,  who  in  his  sermon 
announced  eternal  doom.  It  was  not  thought  the  child 
would  take  the  dreadful  burden  in,  or  pay  any  heed  to 
what  should  be  said.  But  he  listened,  and  shrank. 
The  service  over,  the  father  starting  on  the  way  back 
began  to  whistle  ;  and  on  getting  home,  in  apparent  un- 


CHANNING,    THE   PKEACHER.  357 

concern  for  all  those  phials  of  the  Revelation  that  had 
been  uncorked,  searched  for  the  newspaper,  and  began 
to  read,  while  the  little  one  said  in  his  heart,  "  He  does 
not  believe  what  he  has  heard,  and  it  is  not  true  !  "  He 
doubted  the  Trinity  at  first,  as  he  rejected  it  to  the  last. 
It  may  be  questioned  if  he  understood  its  philosophy, 
its  reason  for  being,  or  the  end  at  which  it  aims, 
namely,  to  find  betwixt  the  human  and  divine  a  bond 
or  common  term.  God  is  one,  but  his  unity  is  not 
numerical  singularity.  Father  and  Son  are  in  each 
other  ;  and  we  must  not  shut  up  God  in  his  high  house 
of  heaven,  or  with  Hebrew  narrowness  make  him  a 
local  Lord,  only  grander  than  the  heathen  ones,  as  in 
his  chariot  he  thunders  and  careers  through  the  sky, 
but  domesticate  him  with  his  offspring  on  the  earth ; 
and  the  Trinit}T  is  a  grand  and  noble  endeavor  to  fill 
with  a  more  majestic  presence  the  household  niche  from 
which  the  pagan  Penates  have  been  expelled.  Possibly, 
it  misses  the  mark  in  confining  the  Incarnation  to  an 
individual,  one  only  begotten,  when  from  all  eternity 
of  the  family  of  God  there  can  be  no  count ;  but  it  hits 
the  centre  in  affirming  that  childhood  is  no  less  essen 
tial  than  parentage  in  the  Deity.  ' '  I  and  my  Father 
are  one."  He  would  fall  if  I  did,  as  the  universe 
would  crumble  if  punctured  at  a  point.  Not  only  im 
manent,  but  identical  at  the  root  are  God  and  man ; 
and  the  Trinity,  in  recognizing  and  trying  to  formulate 
or  state  this  sameness,  avoiding  pantheism,  is  worthy 
of  honor  even  in  its  failure  or  its  partial  success.  Its 
office  is  precious  also  to  resist  individualism  as  a  form 
of  atheism,  and  to  substitute  community  or  communion, 
which  is  truth  and  good,  for  the  communism  wrhich  is 


358  PORTRAITS. 

folly  and  hate.  But  the  Trinity  has  perad venture  a  sec 
ond  defect  in  leaving  out  Nature,  on  which  science  so 
well  insists  ;  while  with  science  concurs  art,  or  that  love 
of  nature  which  in  artist  and  poet  is  so  much  a  mod 
ern  sentiment,  having  a  harbor  in  every  musing  mind. 
I  suppose  no  theologian  would  meet  this  objection  with 
the  metaphysical  plea  that  nature  is  but  a  mirror  or 
mode  of  mind  ;  and  as,  on  the  whole,  honors  are  divided 
between  the  two  theologic  parties  in  this  debate,  no  de 
nominational  color  can  be  suspected  in  these  remarks. 
Be  the  measureless  and  unfathomed  scene  we  are  part 
of  created  or  evolved,  no  solution  of  the  problem  will 
answer  which  does  not  include  the  panorama,  the  fore 
ground,  and  background,  as  well  as  the  figures  in  the 
picture.  So  must  not  all  Unitarian  or  Trinitarian 
schemes  give  place  to  the  conception  of  God  as  one 
and  manifold?  In  this  or  in  any  direction  I  do  not 
claim  for  Channing  supreme  genius  or  philosophic  depth. 
He  lacked  talent  or  temper  to  speculate.  He  held  hard 
to  ethics,  and  he  stuck  close  as  his  skin  to  his  own 
spiritual  frame.  His  idealism  was  realism.  His  affir 
mations  were  ruddy,  and  his  negations  were  never  pale. 
His  saintly  soul  was  steeped  in  reverence  and  infantile 
innocence.  He  stood  in  awe  of  God  and  of  his  own 
soul.  In  no  man  did  conscience  tread  a  loftier  stage. 
One  even  said  of  him,  "He  was  kept  from  the  highest 
goodness  by  his  love  of  rectitude."  His  estimate  of 
human  nature  had  a  logical  tie  with  his  philanthropy. 
He  espoused  betimes  the  cause  of  the  slave.  He  had 
condemned  the  harsh  speech  of  the  Abolitionists.  But 
when  Samuel  J.  May  inquired  of  him,  "  If  they  speak 
ill,  why  do  not  you  speak  well?"  he  meekly  answered, 


CHANNING,    THE    PKEACHER.  359 

"  I  ought  to  have  spoken  before."  When  he  and 
Garrison  met  in  amity,  it  was  said,  "Mercy  and 
truth  are  met  together ;  righteousness  and  peace  have 
kissed  each  other."  There  was  no  doubt  a  moral  qual 
ity  not  only  in  the  impetuosity  of  some,  but  in  the 
hesitancy  of  other  good  men,  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
antislavery  strife ;  and  to  this  honest  ethical  pause 
justice  has  not  yet  been  done.  But  Charming  once  in 
motion  was  no  more  considerate  and  charitable  than 
he  was  brave.  When  the  City  Government  of  Boston 
had  refused  the  use  of  Faneuil  Hall  to  celebrate  the 
martyrdom  of  the  printer  Lovejoy,  editor  of  the  "Al 
ton  Observer,"  in  Illinois,  who  had  fallen  defending 
his  press,  then,  by  an  appeal  to  the  people  which  made 
the  streets  ring  be}Tond  the  toll  of  bells  or  rattle  of  the 
wheels,  Channing  constrained  the  municipal  authority 
to  recede,  and  the  old  Cradle  of  Liberty  rocked  again. 

My  motive  is  not  to  recommend  a  partisan,  which, 
either  in  politics  or  religion,  Channing  never  was.  Like 
Milton,  he  was  an  Arian  in  the  earlier  time  ;  but  all  moot 
points  of  belief,  and  the  idea  of  Christ's  pre-existence 
among  them,  lost  import  with  him,  and  at  length,  be 
fore  his  engrossment  in  humane  interests,  faded  away. 

The  tributes  to  him  come  from  all  quarters  now. 
The  German  Lutheran,  Baron  Bunsen,  in  his  well- 
rounded  characterization,  calls  him  "  in  humanity  a 
Greek,  in  citizenship  a  Roman,  in  Christianity  an  apos 
tle,"  adding,  "  If  such  a  one  is  not  a  Christian  apostle 
of  the  presence  of  God  in  man,  I  know  of  none." 
Dean  Stanley,  lately  in  this  country,  requested  to  be 
taken  to  Mount  Auburn  to  see  the  tomb  of  Channing. 
Dom  Pedro,  Emperor  of  Brazil,  expressed  the  same 


360  PORTRAITS. 

wish.  Like  the  bee-lines  that  meet  over  the  hive,  these 
directions  of  famous  men  from  diverse  latitudes  joined 
at  one  spot. 

In  general,  I  designate  Channing  not  as  a  naturalist, 
but  rather  as  a  supernaturalist.  With  Plato  and  Dr.  Ed 
ward  Beecher,  he  thought  the  soul  to  be  older  than  the 
body.  On  miracles,  which  he  never  ruled  out,  he  came, 
however,  at  last  not  to  lay  the  stress.  He  told  me  he 
thought  the  works  in  nature  were  of  more  worth.  But 
he  relished  no  flouting  of  the  supernatural  aureole 
around  the  Master's  head,  —  the  halo  which  that  head 
rays  out,  and  which  no  science  can  disperse.  Indeed, 
has  not  myth  a  place  as  well  as  fact ;  and  is  not  the 
hand  profane  that  would  rend  it  away?  As  well  blow 
out  the  atmosphere  as  the  superhuman.  We  ma}r 
drive  the  angels  from  the  Bible,  when  we  send  the  witches 
in  ' ;  Macbeth  "  from  the  blasted  heath!  A  persuasion 
haunts  us  of  that  Infinite  Reality,  which  the  rumor  of 
apparitions,  on  whatever  ground  accredited  or  discred 
ited,  represents,  and  which  we  obstinate!}*  believe  ought 
and  some  time  will  be  true !  The  supernatural  is  that 
which,  expelled  with  whatever  fork  of  the  understand 
ing,  nature  will  return  to  with  inevitable  attraction  and 
unappeasable  zest.  But  Channing,  with  all  his  faith, 
could  not  be  irrational ;  and  the  vicarious  atonement  by 
an  infinite  sacrifice,  which  is  to  many  excellent  Chris 
tians  so  unspeakably  dear,  he  could  not  abide,  as  it 
offended  his  moral  sense. 

Humanity  was  his  crown.  He  told  me  how  consist 
ent  he  thought  his  view  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature 
was  with  personal  humility.  "  He  loved  love,"  says 
Balzac  of  one  of  his  heroes.  Channing  was  a  lover  of 


CHANGING,    THE   PREACHER.  361 

amity  and  peace,  and  of  Noah  Worcester,  the  apostle 
of  peace.  He  said  of  the  portraits  and  busts  made  of 
himself,  that  he  cared  less  for  the  intellectual  expres 
sion  than  that  they  should  beam  good-will  to  his  fellow- 
creatures.  The  sight  or  thought  of  inhumanity  he  was 
too  tender  to  bear,  and  he  hoped  he  might  be  excused 
from  perusing  details  of  cruelty,  the  particulars  of  pain. 
He  said  that  the  slaveholder  was  very  much  an  abstrac 
tion  to  him,  whereupon  Garrison  asked,  "Is  he  an  ab 
straction  to  the  slave?"  He  was  a  prophet  of  the  soul, 
and  judged  that  the  highest  nature  could  not,  more  than 
the  lowest,  leave  its  appointed  track.  Such  a  man  as  the 
historian  Prescott  thought  him  a  sublime  and  visionary 
generalize!* ;  but  he  put  his  notion  with  genuine  force  : 
it  struck  a  million  minds,  and  is  not  a  spent  ball  yet. 
He  originated  a  new  wa}^  of  regarding  mankind,  al 
though,  when  he  could  not  manage  a  special  case,  he 
was  glad  to  be  helped  by  the  minister-at-large,  at  the 
birth  of  whose  work  he  assisted.  Pierpont,  the  prac 
tical  reformer,  said,  "  Throw  him  from  his  protections 
into  the  street,  and  he  would  die."  But,  no  more  than 
our  chronometer  or  mirror,  could  we  so  cast  him  out. 
One  of  his  brethren  called  him  a  Jacobin,  and  he  only 
smiled.  He  headed  a  petition  for  the  pardon  of  Ab- 
ner  Kneeland  for  blasphemy,  which  the  present  writer 
signed,  drawing  from  a  Judge  in  his  congregation  the 
observation,  "It  is  the  only  mistake  our  young  min 
ister  has  made."  His  faith  in  the  soundness  of  the 
human  root  is  the  prime  condition  of  all  faith  in  the 
planter,  God. 

To  whom  does  this  pearl  of  character  belong?    To 
no  party.     Diverse  sects  would  appropriate  signal  ex- 


362  PORTRAITS. 

cellence,  as  the  old  cities  disputed  where  Homer  was 
born.  Dean  Stanley  puts  Christ's  wisdom  in  his  refusal 
to  be  classified.  M.  Renan,  on  being  asked,  in  1870,  if 
Prussia  would  be  absorbed  in  Germany,  answered  that 
he  could  not  tell,  as  M.  Bismarck  had  not  yet  submitted 
himself  to  analysis.  Swedenborgians  have  claimed 
Channing's  spirit.  He  had  affinities  with  Whitefield 
and  Wesley,  Anthony  Woolman  and  George  Fox.  A 
great  soul  transcends  orders,  and  is  a  law  to  itself.  It 
is  more  fast  in  righteousness  than  an  engine  to  the  rails 
or  a  planet  on  its  path.  We,  in  this  land,  have  had 
occasion  to  see  that  there  is  in  human  nature  itself  not 
onty  freedom,  but  the  higher  law.  Channing's  mind 
was  a  pervasive  force.  He  corresponded  with  Henry 
Clay,  in  private,  to  discover  at  first  hand  the  facts  of 
human  bondage,  though  the  letters  that  passed  have 
never  found  their  way  into  print.  But  a  Kentucky 
planter  bound  up  Channing's  public  one  to  Clay  with 
blank  leaves,  for  entries  of  his  own  reflections,  showing 
the  hold  on  his  heart  of  perhaps  unwelcome  truth. 

This  surpassing  power  was  lodged  in  a  bod}'  so  in 
valid  that  its  tenant  could  scarce  endure  the  grasp  of 
a  hand.  But  Ichabod  Nichols  said,  only  on  such  con 
ditions  of  sensitiveness  and  delicacy  could  a  Channing 
be  had.  But  the  tenderness  was  firmness  too.  Chan 
ning  was  lofty  and  lowl}',  like  a  branching  elm.  As  a 
solution  is  the  greatest  potency  of  a  drug,  so  in  that  hu 
mility,  which  is  God's  door  of  entrance  to  the  soul,  his 
dignity  was  solved.  There  is  something  in  every  thing 
save  our  conceit,  and  of  that  he  was  devoid. 

He  was  taken  ill  in  a  hotel,  in  Bennington,  Ver 
mont,  October  2,  1842.  As  the  vital  flame  in  him 


CHANNING,    THE    PREACHER.  363 

burned  low,  he  said,  "I  have  received  many  mes 
sages  from  the  spirit."  He  had,  while  he  lived,  got  at 
people  especially,  he  said,  through  their  voices.  His 
whisper  was  his  last  communication.  With  declining 
day  his  countenance  sank.  Being  assisted,  he  turned 
to  the  window  at  the  east.  The  curtains  were  drawn 
back,  and  the  light  fell  on  his  face.  He  gazed  over  the 
valleys  and  wooded  hills,  and  none  but  God  and  the 
spirit  knew  when  his  soul  passed  to  that  prospect 
which  the  horizon  could  not  bound.  Taylor,  the  Bethel- 
preacher,  and  his  great  compeer,  described  the  scene, — 
the  sunset  after  such  a  morning  glow,  the  clambering 
vines  dropping  their  leaves  outside,  and  the  loving 
watchers  over  what,  like  a  leaf,  loosened  from  the  tree 
of  life  within,  —  and,  at  the  close  of  a  sort  of  vocal 
requiem,  the  great  Methodist  cried  or  sang,  "Walk  in 
the  Light."  The  French  Laboulaye,  finding  one  of 
Channing's  books  at  a  stall  in  Paris,  said,  "  I  have  dis 
covered  a  man."  Born,  April  7,  1780,  Channing's  cen 
tennial  commemoration,  for  his  country  and  race,  will 
come  this  year. 

The  fact  is  easily  explained  that  the  image  of  Chan- 
ning  in  the  memory  of  scholars  and  in  the  common 
mind  is  unsmiling  and  severe,  more  of  the  puritan  than 
the  pilgrim  t}Tpe.  At  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  his 
health  was  broken  by  overwork,  and  he  never  recovered 
from  the  nervous  wreck.  He  had  to  gather  the  rem 
nants  of  his  strength  as  fuel  to  keep  the  vital  spark 
alive,  and  nurse  and  warm  himself  ever  after  as  best 
he  could.  But  there  was  no  overplus  of  high  spirits  to 
sparkle  or  radiate ;  and  his  engagement  in  his  themes 
was  too  constant  and  intense  to  spare  a  morsel  of  his 


364  PORTRAITS. 

energy  for  sport.  After  a  brief  salutation,  the  visitor 
was  taken  into  the  laboratory  at  once.  If  he  was  not  in 
terested  in  the  experiments  on  hand,  or  was  a  lion-hunter 
ambitious  for  the  acquaintance  of  a  great  man,  the  case 
was  simply  one  with  which  Channing  could  not  affect 
any  interest  and  was  quite  helpless  to  deal.  He  was 
an  observer,  and  wanted  to  get  others'  observations. 
He  was  all  the  time  considering  high  matters,  and  could 
not  understand  any  one  whose  object  was  not,  like  his, 
to  seek  the  truth.  How  reverentially  he  waited  for 
every  one's  contribution  of  thought,  till  in  his  silence 
he  seemed  freezing  cold !  Any  attempt  at  merriment 
drew  from  him  only  a  passing  wintr}'  smile,  like  that  of 
the  Arctic  regions  at  a  glint  of  the  sun.  To  no  man 
w&s  life  more  serious,  duty  more  solemn,  or  the  call 
more  urgent  to  improve  the  time.  It  has  been  said  of 
the  veteran  Dr.  Ripley,  that  he  was  "  good  at  a  fire." 
Channing  was  disabled  during  the  last  fort}'  years  of 
his  life  for  any  but  the  most  cautious  muscular  exer 
tion  ;  and  the  marvel  is,  not  that  he  was  incompetent 
to  any  feat  of  bodily  strength,  and  afraid  of  the  least 
exposure,  but  that  his  sobriety  of  body  and  mind  was 
mixed  with  such  good  cheer.  Morose  he  never  was. 
Long  after  the  prime  of  bodily  vigor  was  passed,  he 
would,  in  hours  of  relaxation,  play  and  wrestle  with 
his  son,  and  stretch  out  his  arms  for  the  lad,  of  whom 
he  made  a  companion,  to  run  into  across  the  floor,  or 
tell  him  stories,  that  grew  toward  their  climax,  with  cor 
responding  illustration  of  characters  and  figures  in  the 
speech,  by  drawings  with  a  pencil  on  a  slate,  —  which 
ended  usually  in  a  donkey.  But  intellectual  inquiry  took 
possession  of  him  more  and  more  ever}^  day  he  lived.  If 


CHANNING,    THE   PEEACHER.  365 

there  can  be  a  passion  not  only  for  persons  but  for  the 
truth,  no  man  that  ever  breathed  burned  with  it  more. 
His  faculties  for  study  were  rare.  We  respect  men 
that  speak  from  conviction,  as  none  that  listened  to 
him  could  doubt  that  he  did.  But  his  immortalizing 
peculiarity  was  less  that  of  the  genius  than  of  the  saint. 
It  is  the  most  cheering  sign  of  hope  for  mankind  that, 
beyond  all  ingenuity  or  depth  of  argument,  consecration 
of  talent  wins  their  regard.  Jonathan  Edwards  lives 
in  our  honor  more  by  his  unworldly  temper  than  by  his 
essay  on  the  Freedom  of  the  Will ;  and  Channing  will  be 
a  name  in  the  calendar  and  on  the  canon  when  all  his 
works  may  be  forgotten.  His  thought  was  a  river  and 
a  fountain  too ;  not  a  canal  cut  through  him,  but  a  run 
ning  stream.  His  Missouri  arose  in  his  own  mind. 
Dr.  Wa}'land  remarked  how  he  was  transformed  out  of 
apparent  coldness  and  reserve  when  he  wrote  or  spoke. 
It  was  indeed  the  difference  of  a  cannon-ball  in  the 
armory  and  in  the  air.  It  is  our  faith  that  such  a  pro 
jectile  can  never  stop. 


366  PORTRAITS. 


m. 

BUSHNELL,  THE  THEOLOGIAN. 

AMONG  recent  American  authors  Horace  Bushnell 
was  one  of  the  foremost  in  devoting  his  genius 
completely  to  Theology,  that  queen  of  the  sciences,  jet 
so  uncertain  in  her  character  and  unstable  in  her  reign, 
and  never  more  than  in  these  days  needing  some  master 
mind  at  her  court.  All  the  former  schemes  have  been 
shaken,  but  none  appears  to  take  their  place.  The  loud 
demand  for  a  rational  religion  results  in  no  agreement  or 
generally  accepted  cree<|,  even  among  those  by  whom  it 
is  sought.  Channing  protests  against  and  in  some  points 
convicts  the  old  schedule,  but  he  formulates  nothing  new. 
Parker's  ' '  Theism  "  was  the  weakest  of  his  works  ;  and 
our  modern  Liberalism,  so  called,  is  so  untheologic  that  it 
waits  for  proof  that  God  exists.  It  disowns  the  Church, 
and  would  divorce  it  from  the  State.  It  denies  the 
foundation  of  morals  in  parts  of  its  practice,  and  in  its 
theory  holds  it  in  suspense.  Horace  Bushnell,  a  man  con- 
genitally  compelled  to  see  all  things  in  the  light  of  rea 
son,  espoused  at  the  beginning  and  maintained  to  the  end 
the  cause  of  the  Orthodox  faith.  It  has  had  no  other  ex 
pounder  of  equal  genius  in  our  time.  He  was,  however, 
no  such  severe  dialectician  as  Calvin.  While  he  would 
be  logical,  the  forms  of  logic  he  despised.  His  method 
was  that  of  suggestion.  He  was  more  a  poet  than  an. 


BUSHNELL>  THE   THEOLOGIAN.  367 

advocate.  No  man  drew  out  his  discriminations  in 
sharper  lines.  But  in  his  nature  underneath  every  line 
of  argument  was  rustical  piet}T  for  a  daily  refuge,  and 
no  romance  charmed  him  like  a  book  of  prayer.  He 
had  that  charity  for  his  opponents  which  sprang  from  an 
understanding  of  their  positions  as  well  as  from  the  ten 
derness  of  his  own  heart.  He  knew  wiry  and  how  one 
could  differ  from  him  ;  and  his  imagination,  alike  fine 
and  broad,  showed  him  on  what  ground  had  stood  any 
and  every  scheme  of  religion  that  had  prevailed  in  the 
world.  The  political  formulas,  sa}~s  Carlyle,  were  swal 
lowed  by  Mirabeau ;  and  Bushnell  declared  he  could 
take  down  all  the  theological  statements  with  no  lack 
of  edification. 

But  he  was  a  force  and  factor  in  our  New  England 
religion.  Whenever  a  thinker  comes  in  any  sectarian 
fellowship  he  brings  a  crisis,  disturbs  the  communion, 
and  starts  a  revolution  until  his  ideas  are  outgrown  or 
absorbed.  But  Bushnell  said  of  the  chief  antagonist  of 
his  views  that  he  but  wished  to  put  him  into  "  an  attitude 
of  comprehensive  repugnance  ;  "  so  devoid  of  personal 
heat  and  bitterness  his  own  character  and  constitution 
required  him  to  be.  Yet  he  was  as  keen  as  he  was  kind. 
His  eye,  while  soft  and  receptive,  had  the  glitter  of  a 
spear  or  of  a  diamond's  edge.  It  laughed  before  his 
lips  smiled,  and  was  merry  while  the  other  features  were 
still  grave,  but  scintillated  and  shrewdly  penetrated  to 
the  point.  What  shafts  of  wit  and  humor  he  habitually 
shot !  When  a  doctor  of  divinity  told  him  that  he  had 
been  "laying  out  the  Presbyterian  doctrine"  to  the 
present  writer,  Bushnell  replied,  "  You  mean,  I  sup 
pose,  that  you  have  been  putting  a  shroud  on  it ;  for 


368  PORTRAITS. 

that 's  what  they  do  when  they  lay  things  out ! "  He 
hated  sanctimonious  mimicry.  No  dogma  that  had 
become  a  stereotyped  mechanical  recitative  was  safe 
from  his  stroke.  He  condemned  it  if  it  was  customary 
and  trite.  Every  article,  to  be  accepted  or  pass  with 
him,  must  be  restated  and  reformed,  and  have  the  word 
of  the  latest  intelligence  for  its  countersign.  He  was  a 
-'  son  of  Agamemnon  terrible  to  purify."  He  averred 
that  he  was  not  a  Calvinist ;  but  said  he  thought  ' '  a 
Calvinist  could  be  a  Christian,"  which  Father  Taj'lor 
denied,  as  he  inquired  how  such  Calvinists  as  might  be 
admitted  to  heaven  b}T  an  arbitrary  decree,  irrespective 
of  moral  conduct,  would  like  it,  should  the  Master  come 
along  and  "turn  the  stick  round"  with  a  verdict  as 
absolute  as  was  the  first,  yet  that  should  lodge  them  in 
hell !  To  this  imputed  uncertainty  of  a  salvation  on 
principle,  purely  elective  and  wholly  unearned,  Bush- 
nell  replied  b}*  heartily  joining  in  the  Bethel-preacher's 
well-grounded  and  very  sober  fun. 

Being  utterly  sincere,  incapable  of  sophistry,  and 
instantly  discarding  in  his  views  any  unsoundness  of 
which  he  was  aware,  how  then  did  he  present  his  case, 
to  save  the  truth  and  Orthodoxy  too  ?  I  can  testifj'  on 
one  point  at  least.  The  dispute  about  everlasting  pun 
ishment,  that  rends  the  Congregational  bod}*  to-day, 
was  easily  solved  in  his  mind  by  the  belief  that  the  per 
sistently  wicked  would  not  in  the  future  world  survive 
their  sin.  This  opinion  is  cited  from  private  conversation 
in  the  latter  years  of  his  life,  and  may  never  have  been 
by  him  publicly  preached.  Yet  my  interest  in  the  sub 
ject,  as  in  the  man,  renders  impossible  any  mistake  in 
my  recollection  of  the  emphasis  with  which  he  affirmed 


BUSHKELL,    THE   THEOLOGIAN.  369 

that  ' '  every  thing  looks  as  if  they  who  are  unreclaimed 
from  transgression  must  go  down  and  go  out,  and  no 
more  be."  But  this  Darwinian  doctrine  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  carried  beyond  the  grave,  shocks  the  con 
sciousness  of  Christendom,  and  by  no  church  is  it  yet 
received.  Only  an  individual  and  numerical,  not  moral 
or  spiritual,  immortality  is  still  held.  But  few  think  any 
individual  is  perishable.  No  heresy  could  be  more 
flagrant  in  any  sect  than  to  doubt  the  everlasting  per 
sonal  continuance  alike  of  the  giant  in  iniquity  and  of 
the  still-born  child.  But  a  crisis  is  at  hand  to  test  the 
thought,  which  was  not  Bushnell's  alone.  The  motive  to 
virtue  of  an  eternal  perdition  for  every  particular  share 
holder  in  the  depravity  of  the  race  is  slowly  and  fatally 
being  withdrawn,  leaving  a  vacuum  for  the  conscience 
which  some  other  and  better  incentive  must  fill,  if  we 
would  not  have  the  motive  power  fail  and  the  human 
train  stop  in  all  conscious  motion  to  a  future  destiny. 
What  inducement  to  well-doing  could  be  so  wholesome 
and  strong  as  to  suspend  upon  faithfulness,  instead  of 
an  indestructible  entity,  all  our  hope  of  being  at  all? 
What  expectation  of  any  proper  immortalit}'  can  they 
have  who  are  not  immortal  in  their  thoughts  and  affec 
tions  now  ?  In  our  experience  alone  is  any  fact  what 
soever  sure  ;  and  before  heaven  is  in  our  vision,  it  must 
be  in  our  heart.  Unfelt  as  a  reality,  it  cannot  be  hon- 
estlty  preached  as  a  faith ;  and  so  we  read  of  the  Son  of 
Man  that  he  was  in  heaven  while  he  stayed  and  seemed 
to  be  on  the  earth. 

Dr.  Bushnell  was  a  Trinitarian.  He  tried  to  show 
that  a  threefold  divinity  is  not  only  taught  in  Scripture, 
but  is  credible  in  itself  and  conformable  to  human  want. 

24 


370  PORTRAITS. 

But  he  held  that  the  substance  of  Deity  is  one,  and  only 
the  manifestation  triune.  If,  however,  in  the  composi 
tion  of  the  Trinity  the  essence  be  abandoned  and  the 
expression  kept,  it  loses  not  only  its  importance  but  its 
ground.  When  we  come  to  the  showings  of  Deity,  how 
all  number  fails,  and  counting  must  be  given  up  !  Three 
or  three  thousand  in  our  arithmetic  can  never  surround  or 
ascend  to  all  the  jets  from  the  infinite  spring.  If  not  a 
triad  but  simple  unity  be  the  subsistence  of  God,  no 
Trinitarian  theory  touches  bottom,  or  more  than  resem 
bles  a  deep-sea  line  beyond  soundings  and  dangling  in 
the  waves.  If  the  Father  be  the  first  term,  the  Son  must 
be  not  only  second  but  secondary ;  and  how  could  the 
first  be  Father  unless  he  were  already  the  third,  that  is, 
the  Spirit  too,  as  by  Jesus  he  is  called  ?  In  all  parent 
age  childhood  is  implied  ;  but  childhood  is  the  offspring 
or  procreation,  and  that  which  all  earthly  parentage 
figures  is  unbegotten  and  unborn. 

The  trouble  with  Trinitarianism  —  and  it  is  a  difficulty 
more  formidable  and  threatening  every  day  —  is  that  it 
leaves  Nature  out ;  and  Nature  will  not  consent  either 
to  be  omitted  or  to  remain  under  the  ban.  The  original 
curse  laid  upon  her  is  antiquated  long  ago.  Nature  with 
every  step  and  discovery  of  science  becomes  in  all  sys 
tems  a  factor  of  greater  weight ;  and  the  knowledge  of 
Nature  is  reinforced  by  that  love  of  Nature,  distinctively 
a  modern  sentiment,  so  informing  all  piety,  as  well  as 
poetry  and  music  and  pictorial  art,  that  whatever  spec 
ulation  may  presume  to  affront  and  wrestle  with  it  is 
sure  to  be  discredited,  shoved  aside,  or  overthrown. 
What  then  has  Nature,  this  last  and  not  untrustworthy 
witness,  to  saj*  about  God? 


BUSHNELL,    THE   THEOLOGIAN.  371 

Bat  let  us  not  slur  the  previous  question,  whether 
Nature  is  not  in  theology  a  term  to  be  altogether  sup 
pressed.  Science  or  the  scientific  man,  it  is  perhaps 
correctly  said,  knows  nothing  of  God.  But  Nature's 
meaning  is  by  no  scientist  ever  divined  and  drawn  out. 
Many  things  in  nature  we  can  scarce  conceive  that  God, 
save  under  necessities  which  our  thought  cannot  fathom, 
although  our  faith  must  accommodate,  could  directly  in 
tend  or  do.  Natural  evil,  as  with  a  whip  of  scorpions, 
drives  us  back  to  find  the  witness  of  his  justice  and 
goodness  in  our  own  conscience  and  heart.  Philosophy 
joins  with  religion,  as  witness  here.  We  denounce  Cal 
vinism  as  impious  and  absurd.  But  how  far  pessimism, 
the  last  word  of  German  speculation,  in  its  malediction 
on  our  Mother  Earth  suckling  us  at  her  breast,  has  out 
stripped  any  indictment  by  the  Genevan  divine !  To 
Dr.  Bushnell  Nature  is  hardly  more  than  a  phantom, 
the  clothing  of  a  god,  or  the  shadow  of  a  man.  He 
never  lies  down  quite  content  in  her  maternal  lap.  The 
stars  are  to  him  but  a  larger  spread  of  tinsel  or  shine 
of  gilding ;  and,  in  the  case  of  the  Christ,  he  comes  near 
to  abolishing  human  nature  too,  as  he  makes  nothing  to 
be  significant  in  Jesus  but  the  divinity  which  he  is  and 
reveals.  The  humanit}*  of  the  Lord  is  only  appearance 
and  veneer,  a  frame  for  the  picture  or  a  setting  for  the 
gem.  Bushnell's  most  remarkable  and  elaborate  essay 
is  a  monograph  inscribed  with  this  view.  Did  he  have 
any  mistrust  that  he  was  thus  dropping  out  of  his  be 
loved  Trinity  the  indispensable  equivalent  of  the  second 
term  ?  In  his  ' '  Nature  and  the  Supernatural "  he  does  so 
take  up  the  line  betwixt  the  two  that  it  becomes  as  hard 
to  distinguish  them  in  his  treatment  as  it  is  to  many  per- 


372  POKTKATTS. 

sons  to  part  them  in  fact !  But  until  the  boundary  is 
discovered  all  miracle  will  be  in  doubt ;  and  probably  he 
believed  in  no  miracle  as  a  violation  of  law. 

But  for  such  disparagement  or  counting  out  Nature 
has  her  revenge.  She  forces  upon  our  author,  in  all 
his  acute  profundity,  the  rehabilitation  of  herself.  He 
finds  a  retroactive  effect,  as  by  an  ex  post  facto  law,  of 
the  curse  of  Adam's  sin  on  living  forms  of  reptile  and 
fish  before  the  first  man  was  fashioned  on  the  earth. 
The  deformity  of  such  a  creature,  for  example,  as  the 
flounder  was  in  veritable  anticipation  of  the  ugliness  of 
the  human  fall,  as  if,  to  borrow  the  criticism  of  another, 
Nature  had  misshapen  herself  with  a  fit  or  shudder 
beforehand  at  the  consequences  of  Adam's  eating,  a 
myriad  of  ages  after,  the  forbidden  fruit. 

But  this  supersubtle  reasoner  concerning  the  native 
corruption  of  the  race,  in  his  discourses  on  "  Christian 
Nurture,"  struck  at  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity  the 
heaviest  blow  it  has  ever  received.  He  perceived  that 
some  idea  of  human  nature  must  be  held.  The  Liberal 
theolog}^  has  dealt  with  men  as  individuals,  so  many 
souls  personally  responsible,  each  one.  Orthodoxy  has 
at  least  grappled  with  the  real  problem  of  the  whole 
body  of  humanity,  or  the  organic  solidarity  of  the  race. 
Despite  the  Prophet's  rebuke  to  such  as  quoted  for  their 
own  exculpation  the  proverb,  "the  fathers  have  eaten 
sour  grapes,  and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge." 
The  latest  investigations,  with  no  ecclesiastical  bias, 
only  confirm  heredity  as  a  universal  law.  But  Bushnell 
insisted  on  a  working  of  that  law  not  only  as  degrad 
ing,  but,  through  religious  inheritance,  benign.  He  held 
that  it  is  in  the  Church  a  hurtful  superstition  to  base 


BUSHNELL,   THE   THEOLOGIAN.  373 

redemption  on  any  sudden  conversion,  as  by  a  new 
birth,  children  being  regenerate  in  their  devout  parent 
age  without  special  prodigy  of  grace,  the  need  of  which 
in  every  case  the  Congregationalist  and  Baptist  orders 
have  so  vehemently  affirmed.  His  elucidation  and  cour 
ageous  reassertion  of  this  so  well-taken  point  after  a 
long  ecclesiastical  dulness  made  the  Church  ring  all  its 
bells  once  more  !  But  at  the  touch  of  reproach  and  per 
secution  he  did  not  waver  or  flinch.  His  }Tear  of  con 
troversy  on  this  subject  within  the  borders  of  his  own 
brotherhood  made  the  romantic  period  of  his  life,  and 
proved,  as  in  the  furnace,  the  metal  of  which  he  was 
made.  The  volume  of  sermons,  which  were  disserta 
tions  on  the  Church  as  being  a  nursery  and  not  a 
revival  camp  or  rink,  was  the  most  valuable  of  his  pub 
lications,  for  all  parties  in  our  New  England  Christen 
dom  of  thirty  years  ago.  It  called  alike  Unitarian  and 
Trinitarian  individualism  to  order.  It  broke  down  in 
part  and  for  a  while  the  partition-wall  between  the 
two  sides  in  this  community.  It  was  a  new  atone 
ment,  and  no  discussions  of  any  thesis  of  diverse  belief 
have  had  an  interest  among  us  so  lively  or  lasting  so 
long.  The  pages  of  Bushnell  devoted  to  them  have  a 
fresh  stimulus  and  generous  nutriment  still,  as  of  com 
munion  bread  and  wine. 

His  repeated  attempts  to  rationalize  the  doctrine  of 
God's  reconcilement  to  man,  or  propitiation  by  vica 
rious  suffering,  were  masterly  pleas  for  positions  hard  of 
defence,  and  which  he  really  forsook  in  undertaking  to 
maintain,  so  satisfying  neither  party  in  the  strife.  He 
was  like  a  lawyer  whose  damaging  admissions  after  the 
most  ingenious  argument  are  ruinous  to  his  client's 


374  PORTRAITS. 

case.  In  his  reconstruction  nothing  of  the  notion 
which  he  was  retained  to  demonstrate  was  left.  Cal 
vinism  found  in  him,  indeed,  its  vanishing  point,  and 
Orthodoxy  became  heterodox  by  every  plain  issue  it 
had,  according  to  the  Liberals,  ever  made  with  rea 
son  and  the  moral  sense.  "Hast  thou  appealed  unto 
Caesar?  Unto  Caesar  shalt  thou  go,"  said  Festus  to 
Paul.  The  Caesar  to  whose  tribunal  every  word  from 
Bushnell  summoned  the  popular  creed  was  the  ethical 
reason,  and  the  consequence  was  that  every  dogma  that 
was  tried  at  this  bar  was  either  altered  or  given  up. 
This  doom  on  the  old  body  of  divinity  reminds  us  of 
Ariel's  song  to  Ferdinand  in  "  The  Tempest," 

"  Full  fathom  five  thy  father  lies ; 
Of  his  bones  are  coral  made  ; 
Those  are  pearls  that  were  his  eyes ; 

Nothing  of  him  that  doth  fade 
But  doth  suffer  a  sea-change 
Into  something  rich  and  strange. 
Sea-nymphs  hourly  ring  his  knell: 
Ding-dong. 
Hark  !  now  I  hear  them,  —  ding-dong,  bell." 

In  Dr.  Bushnell's  occasional  discourses,  where  he  holds 
in  hand  no  theologic  prescription  or  brief,  his  genius  is 
most  happily  displayed.  The  Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration 
was  perhaps  the  most  perfect  of  its  kind  in  our  day. 
The  sermon  on  "  Barbarism  the  First  Danger,"  that  on 
"Unconscious  Influence, "and  the  "Address  on  Music  " 
are  specimens  of  original  power  which  in  the  pulpit  of 
any  denomination  or  in  the  lyceum  are  seldom  matched. 
In  the  now  two  centuries  of  puritanic  tradition  in  this 
land  no  man  has  appeared  since  Jonathan  Edwards 
whose  ^ision  of  the  point  in  debate  went  more  deeply, 


BUSHNELL,   THE   THEOLOGIAN.  375 

or  whose  vigor  was  more  conspicuous  in  unfolding  its 
vital  contents.  We  have  had  famous  orators  in  the 
Orthodox  desk,  who  could,  on  occasion,  bravely  spurn 
what  hampered  them  like  a  ball  and  chain,  and  dash 
forward  into  a  larger  field  of  survey.  But  anon  they 
would  retreat  to  the  familiar  repetitions  and  S3rmbolical 
books  of  the  synagogue  to  which  they  belonged  !  Bush- 
nell  held  whatever  ground  he  conquered,  occupied  in 
force  the  fortress  he  won,  and  was  not  only  a  theo 
logian,  but  a  devotee  and  a  divine.  From  his  child 
hood,  through  all  his  boyhood  and  college-days,  he 
illustrated  that  descent  of  sacred  influence  whose  law 
he  set  forth.  Eunice  and  Lois  no  more  sent  it  down  to 
Timothy  than  it  came  progenitally  to  him,  so  that  the 
main  theme  of  his  life  was  an  heirloom  in  his  blood. 

The  increasing  value  of  Nature  in  the  theological 
sum  is  what  mainly  now  we  have  to  take  into  account. 
Once  matter,  or  the  stuff  of  Nature,  was  so  evil  that 
God  must  not  soil  his  hands  with  it,  but  intrust  to 
some  lower  deity,  or  demiurgus,  the  creation  of  the 
world ;  and  afterwards  the  whole  structure  as  finished 
was  so  hurt  by  sin,  like  a  tool  or  machine  broken  the 
moment  it  came  into  actual  use,  that  it  went  by  default, 
and  was  set  aside.  In  the  modern  sense  of  an  entity 
or  unity,  idealized  or  abstractly  conceived,  —  unless 
Cicero  be  an  exception  to  this  remark,  —  Nature  did 
not  exist  to  the  ancient  mind,  sacred  or  profane.  But 
recently  she  has  arisen,  like  one  with  confused  senses  wak 
ing  from  sleep.  Her  name  nowhere,  with  our  full  mean 
ing,  is  found  even  in  Holy  Writ.  But  now  she  claims 
to  be  the  offspring  of  God.  She  scorns  the  possibility 
of  being,  in  herself  or  her  offspring,  totally  depraved. 


376  PORTRAITS. 

She  has  shown  that  she  has  a  constitution  whose  power 
has  not  been  measured,  or  health  ruined,  or  proportions 
gauged.  Her  frame,  at  every  successive  glance  of  her 
children  who  have  learned  to  call  her  mother,  discloses 
new  beauty,  with  a  promise  to  cancel  all  deformity,  and 
a  harmon}'  to  resolve  every  discordant  note.  That  good 
Churchman,  John  Ruskin,  who  under  the  title  of  art 
has  written  with  unmatched  eloquence  of  her  grandeur 
and  charm,  recognizes  in  no  part  of  her  fashion  the 
ancient  theological  ban.  He  smites  the  actual  sinner, 
whom  ancestral  apology  cannot  excuse.  He  describes 
him  as,  in  the  English  ritual,  "  concealing  the  manner 
of  his  sin  from  men,  while  confessing  the  quantity  of  it 
to  God." 

Nature,  once  esteemed  as  nothing  but  a  positive  hin 
drance  to  piety  or  a  minus  amount  in  the  mathematics  of 
our  religious  means,  at  present^  with  every  art  for  her 
witness,  is  vindicating  herself  from  past  insult  and  dis 
inheritance.  Her  previous  nonentity  has  among  scien 
tists  become  the  only  entity  in  perhaps  the  majorit}"  of 
modern  minds.  From  cold  and  empty  zero  she  has 
ascended  what  measureless  degrees  !  There  is  no  limit 
to  this  scale.  Such  a  thing  as  literal  supernature,  which 
Bushnell  identified  with  spirit,  is  everywhere  dislodged. 
By  no  imagination  can  it  be  clearly  grasped.  What  is 
pure  spirit  but  an  image  for  absolute  spirit  supplied  by 
the  wind?  It  does  not  in  fact  exist.  The  world  is 
God's  habit ;  but  he  cannot  take  off  his  dress.  A  naked 
Deity  he  never  was  !  Why  should  he  disrobe  who  never 
lies  down  to  sleep  ?  Without  this  self- woven  atomic  gar 
ment,  tough  and  vast  and  many-colored,  which  he  wears 
.and  cannot  wear  out,  he  was  never  seen  to  go  forth ; 


BUSHNELL,    THE   THEOLOGIAN.  377 

nor  as  distinct  from  it  shall  we  behold  him  even  in 
heaven.  We  have,  in  our  little  time-span,  crept  under 
the  border  of  it  on  earth.  But  for  that  cover  we  could 
not  have  a  moment's  life  and  breath  ;  and,  though  we  be 
stripped  of  this  fleshly  raiment  when  we  die,  the  same  old 
nature  or  matter  must,  in  some  finer  st}Tle,  furnish  our 
ascension  robes,  if  such  we  are  indeed  to  have.  Nature 
clothes  us  for  our  cradle  below,  and  will  reclothe  us  for 
our  journey  hence,  as  a  mother  does  her  children,  be 
they  infant  or  grown  up.  When  we  converse  with  a 
noble  soul,  a  monad  like  Channing  or  Bushnell,  we  feel 
that,  in  the  language  of  Paul,  it  is  not  to  ube  unclothed, 
but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality  might  be  swallowed  up 
of  life."  To  what  better  uses  can  this  outward  material, 
in  all  its  strong  and  subtile  textures,  be  put,  than  as 
the  vehicle,  or  to  afford  successive  vehicles,  to  a  loving 
and  adoring  spirit,  to  a  musing  and  scrutinizing  intelli 
gence,  and  to  a  resolute  and  all-projecting  will  ?  What 
finer  service  in  the  counsels  of  the  Most  High,  among 
grasses  and  flowers,  animal  organisms,  sublimity  in  the 
hills,  or  graceful  shape  and  changing  hue  in  "the 
plighted  clouds,"  can  it  render,  than  to  comfort  con 
tinuously  a  thinking  and  aspiring  nature  of  intrinsic 
superiority  to  itself,  to  guard  it  against  blasts  in  the 
dark  valley,  and  repair  it  from  all  the  wastes  of  time  ? 
Wherefore  does  it  hint  an  inestimable  potency  in  the 
lightning  or  the  thunder-crash,  and  wrap  up  in  molecules 
an  enormous  force,  but  to  hint  capacity  in  its  delicate 
drawers  for  all  angelic  and  immortal  demands  ?  When 
matter  is  mended  into  a  pen  to  write  words  for  us  on 
the  other  side  of  the  sea,  or  shaped  into  a  tongue  to 
talk  our  messages  into  listening  ears  scores  of  miles 


378  PORTRAITS. 

away,  and  without  leaving  our  chair  to  communicate  our 
wishes  either  to  a  distant  town  or  a  neighboring  street, 
does  it  not  justify  our  cordial  apprehension  that  it  is 
an  eternal  agent  and  our  appointed  servant  for  ever, 
still  to  wait  upon  us  when  all  space  shall  be  but  our 
sitting-room  and  what  we  call  time  shall  be  no  more  ? 
Ofttimes  we  are  shrewdly  pinched  with  it,  and  in  its 
grip  heavily  thrown  ;  but  a  notion  stubbornly  clings  to 
us  that  we  cannot  be  vanquished  at  last,  or  confounded 
with  any  of  its  wrecks.  Not  seldom  in  some  warm  and 
pleasing  shape  it  may  contrive  our  destruction,  and  lure 
us  to  the  pit.  But  to  glorify  us  with  grace  of  a  resisted 
temptation  or  a  repented  transgression  is  its  real  and 
ultimate  design.  "No  cross,  no  crown  "is  a  sacred 
proverb ;  and  when  we  see  crosses  wrought  into  dia 
dems  on  the  heads  of  kings,  the  transfiguration  of  all 
calamit}T  is  symbolized  and  foreseen. 

Materialism  or  naturalism  is  not  to-day  among  us  here 
in  vain,  albeit  the  apparent  dominant  and  dismal  belief 
of  the  age.  It  awaits  its  transformation,  like  a  worm 
out  of  its  skinny  crib  or  a  body  in  its  unlighted  tomb. 
There  must  be  some  collateral  intent  in  the  obstinacy 
with  which  even  the  gross  dogma  of  "  a  resurrection  of 
the  body  "  clings  to  the  confession  of  the  Church.  It  sig 
nifies  the  inability  of  our  thought  to  envisage  any  being, 
human  or  divine,  without  form !  If  we  are  to  rise,  it 
must  be  not  only  with  some  essence,  but  with  some  sub 
stance  as  well.  So  only  does  it  seem  to  us  that  we  can 
escape  the  prison  of  the  body,  and  avoid  the  voracity 
of  the  grave.  If  rising  in  another  form,  or,  in  the 
grand  Scripture-phrase,  "the  resurrection  of  the  dead," 
were  substituted  in  cathedral-chancels  and  in  the  mis- 


BUSHNELL,   THE   THEOLOGIAN.  379 

named  Apostles'  Creed  for  "  resurrection  of  the  body," 
these  would,  without  offence  to  reason,  be  a  furtherance 
of  faith. 

We  think,  accordingly,  that  in  his  endeavor  to  draw  a 
line  betwixt  nature  and  the  supernatural  Dr.  Bushnell 
has  no  satisfying  success.  To  some  of  his  descriptions 
does  not  a  remnant  of  the  old  contempt  for  nature 
adhere  ?  If  all  of  spirit,  if  the  element  of  prayer  and 
even  the  action  of  the  human  will,  be  supernatural,  as 
he  would  represent,  what,  indeed,  that  is  natural  in  any 
worthy  sense  is  left?  In  the  processes  of  our  experi 
menter's,  laboratory  Nature  has,  in  fact,  been  incremated 
or  calcined,  and  only  a  dead  powder  of  dregs  or  cinder 
of  ashes  remains.  She  was  but  a  sort  of  serpent  which 
Aaron's  rod  has  devoured ;  or  as  insubstantial  as  Berkeley 
makes  all  that  is  external  to  be  in  his  philosophy  ;  or  as 
that  magical  Prospero,  who  is  Shakspeare,  in  his  speech 
at  the  funeral  obsequies  of  matter,  pictures  and  wipes 
out  the  world.  Rather,  is  there  not  some  confusion  in 
the  masterly  statement  of  our  theologian,  who  is  a 
psalmist  too  ?  Idealism  or  realism  as  a  system  we  may 
understand.  But  the  spheres  which  we  confound,  we 
destroy.  Perhaps  a  metaphysic,  more  hazy  than  pro 
found,  hanging  over  our  author's  exposition  of  this  par 
ticular  subject,  may  account  for  the  comparatively  slight 
influence  of  a  dissertation  perhaps  abler,  as  it  is  more 
voluminous,  than  any  other  of  his  single  efforts,  while 
less  marked  than  others  of  them  with  justness  of  view 
and  a  sturdy  common-sense. 

But  we  so  respect  his  extraordinary  faculty  as  to  ap 
prehend  that  what  he  could  not  do  cannot  be  done,  and 
that  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  may  in  no  wise  be 


380  PORTRAITS. 

cut  apart.  As  things  not  conterminous  or  interfering, 
they  interpenetrate,  yet  do  riot  mix.  Do  we  predicate 
the  supernatural  and  the  superhuman  of  God  ?  But  God 
most  of  all  pervades,  as  he  enfolds  Nature  and  humanity 
too.  "The  Lord,"  says  the  Swede nborgian,  "is  a  man." 
But  he  is  Nature  too.  She  is  the  mediator  more  than 
any  one  man  can  be  ;  and  the  doom  of  failure  is  on  all 
attempts,  even  the  most  astute,  to  cast  out  her  name  as 
evil  or 'as  naught  in  the  communion  of  saints  or  in  the 
work  of  redeeming  love.  Sh'e  will  not  evacuate  the  prem 
ises,  but  will  hold  on  more  firmly  every  day,  whatever 
hypothesis-maker  may  bid  her  go.  Unresentful  of  his 
foolish  and  puny  plan,  she  continues  to  supply  language 
for  the  liberal  setting  forth  of  his  thought !  Her  em 
blems  are  the  fashions  of  his  literary  costume.  Out  of 
her  armory  he  gathers  the  weapons  which  he  turns  against 
her  breast.  From  her  ample  vestry  come  both  the  color 
and  pattern  of  the  style  he  employs  for  her  abuse,  as 
her  wardrobe  will  give,  without  money  or  purchase- 
price,  his  outfit  when  he  shall  quit  his  present  abode  in 
her  precincts  for  any  other  or  higher  of  her  endless  and 
boundless  scenes.  That  she  will  always  be  our  intro 
duction  and  introducer  to  spirit  is  a  noble  suspicion 
we  cannot  shun.  Could  we  clean  her  out  of  her  own 
premises,  or  be  clear  of  her  ourselves,  no  longer  were  we 
ourselves  !  We  cannot  pare  matter  down  to  spirit,  and 
we  cannot  merge  spirit  in  matter ;  but  when  soul  is  con 
ceived  as  separate  from  form,  or  the  name  of  spiritualism 
is  bestowed  on  the  circle-manifestations  to  sheer  sense, 
or  the  incarnation  is  limited  as  a  prodigy  to  a  single 
historic  case,  we  may  well  call  upon  materialism,  bald 
and  downright,  to  restore  the  disturbed  balance,  and 


BUSHNELL,    THE   THEOLOGIAN.  381 

acknowledge  our  debt  to  the  materialist,  who  at  least 
holds  that  something  is  extant,  without  which  the  infi 
nite  were  lost. 

Were  miracles  possible,  in  the  sense  of  nullified  laws, 
they  must  perforce  be  wrought  in  the  stuff  of  Nature, 
and  thus  keep  some  of  her  statutes,  whatever  others  they 
break,  so  picking  and  choosing  the  marvellous,  which 
the  phantoms  of  dead  men  in  the  dusky  seance  make 
out  of  the  whole  cloth.  But  God  need  not  depart  from 
his  character  of  lawgiver  to  be  lover  too ;  and  if  men 
be  translated  or  transformed  to  angels,  science  can 
specify  no  law  which  would  thus  be  annulled.  Rever 
ent  waiting,  not  curiosity,  is  here  in  place,  and  he  who 
begins  with  inquisitiveness  will  not  end  with  prayer. 

But  all  the  reports  that  science  has  made,  or  ever  will 
render  in,  must  in  no  wise  be  considered  as  identical 
with  or  equivalent  to  Nature  herself.  Science  but  traces 
some  part  or  section  of  her  structural  mode,  which  is 
but  the  outside  of  her  method ;  and  it  is  incompetent  to 
codify  all  her  laws,  to  map  her  operations,  or  exhaust 
her  contents.  Science  will  be  for  ever  disabled  for 
such  tasks,  inasmuch  as  to  other  than  the  scientific 
faculties  Nature  appeals,  and  her  entire  significance 
can  even  be  apprehended  only  by  the  whole  soul.  Her 
summons  to  our  understanding  is  her  least  and  faintest 
address.  She  accosts  every  feeling.  She  greets  and 
stirs  our  imagination,  she  arouses  our  wonder,  and  she 
offers  an  altar  for  our  prayer  ;  and  the  heart  dedicated 
to  any  object,  visible  or  unseen,  is  provided  by  her  with 
countless  correspondences  and  cipher  despatches  of  its 
sentiment,  and  has  never  found  her  last  token  of  its 
worship  and  love.  Homer  and  Shakspeare  and  Dante 


382  'PORTRAITS. 

and  Goethe  are  more  profound  interpreters  of  what  she 
intends  and  would  say  than  even  Newton  and  Kepler 
and  Humboldt  and  Laplace  ;  and  we  shall  go  to  Words 
worth  rather  than  to  Huxley  now  to  have  her  riddle 

read. 

"  Throned  on  the  sun's  descending  car, 
What  power  unseen  diffuses  far 

This  tenderness  of  mind  ? 
What  genius  smiles  on  yonder  flood  ? 
What  god,  in  whispers  from  the  wood, 
Bids  every  thought  be  kind  ?  " 

On  one  of  those  spring  days  when  the  Lord  seems  to 
keep  open  house,  is  there  not  in  Nature's  liturgy  indeed 
such  a  collect  as  this  ?  Does  she  not  chant  our  ascrip 
tions,  repeat  our  doxologies,  and  make  the  real  re 
sponses  in  our  service  of  praise?  If  she  be  not  alive, 
but  only  the  echo  or  sounding-board  of  our  affections, 
yet  her  reverberation  intensifies  and  prolongs  every  cry 
of  devotion  or  compassion,  every  whisper  of  trust  or 
lisp  of  hope  from  the  human  breast. 

Dr.  Bushnell  was  not  insensible  to  her  sustenance 
and  succor  for  the  diverse  emotions  breathed  by  the 
solitary  and  excommunicated,  or  by  the  socially  jaded 
and  sorely  persecuted,  into  her  ever-hospitable  ear.  But 
his  theological  situation  and  antecedents  restricted  him, 
native  singer  though  he  were,  to  little  use  of  her  as  a 
religious  instructor  and  ally.  His  ratiocination  hung  as 
a  veil  between  her  and  his  eyes  ;  and  we  may  find  one 
defect  of  the  popular  creed  in  general  in  its  scanty 
draughts  on  her  so  precious  fund. 

In  this  instance  my  criticism,  however  inadequate,  of 
the  theologian,  must  pass  instead  of  any  full  portraiture 
of  the  man.  But  for  delicacy  to  the  living  I  might 


BUSHNELL,    THE   THEOLOGIAN.  383 

match  the  gifts  and  achievements  of  this  Orthodox  stu 
dent  with  some  sketch  of  scholarly  talent  and  learning  on 
the  Liberal  side.  I  deem  it  better  to  let  his  picture  hang 
by  itself,  as  that  of  one  who  spent  his  life  in  profound 
reflection  on  religious  themes,  going  from  barefoot  dig 
ging  for  exercise  in  the  actual  soil  to  more  serious  exer- 
citation,  pen  in  hand,  at  his  desk  ;  with  little  society  of 
his  peers,  and  seldom  an}^  companion  to  cope  with  on 
equal  terms,  and  with  still  less  amusement  or  recreation 
of  a  very  enlivening  sort,  yet  as  cheerful  and  merry  as 
he  was  heroic  at  each  sober  task,  ever  busy  and  preoc 
cupied  with  some  intellectual  proposition,  or,  as  he  told 
me,  taking  a  Park  with  him  to  bed,  —  he  having  been  much 
concerned  with  securing  to  the  city  of  Hartford,  where 
he  lived  and  preached,  the  fine  Common  that  goes  by 
that  name,  —  and  when,  toward  the  last,  he  was  too 
weak  to  walk,  wanting,  if  any  one  of  his  household  had 
been  willing  to  answer  his  inquiry  for  that  purpose,  to 
put  on  his  boots  and  go  out  with  a  visitor  who  had 
called. 

Dr.  Bushnell  for  friendly  fellowship  was  one  of  the 
most  winsome,  as  in  his  appearance  he  was  one  of  the 
handsomest  of  men.  Nature  had  struck  out  his  face, 
and  never  again  used  the  same  die.  It  resembled  the 
stamp  of  Channing's  countenance,  with  the  same  deli 
cacy  of  feature  and  deep-cut  orbit  for  the  organs  of  vis 
ion,  and  an  equal  spiritualization  of  the  traits,  till  every 
line  and  atom  of  flesh  served  for  expression.  He  had 
greater  vivacity  and  mobilit}^,  and  a  recurring  humor 
that  had  at  length  almost  faded  out  of  the  look  of 
the  great  Unitarian  divine.  Both  alike  were  vota 
ries  of  ideas ;  and  both  grew  younger  and  fresher  the 


384  PORTRAITS. 

longer  they  lived.  I  feel  often  still  the  glance  of  Bush- 
nell,  so  searching  and  kindly,  and  am  conscious  of  his 
presence  and  influence  in  nry  mind ;  and  I  find  in  his 
writing  a  complementary  color  of  close  and  cogent  argu 
ment  for  Channing's  more  generalizing  method,  as  well 
as  his  less  playful  wit.  He  had  also  that  satisfaction  in 
consecration  to  duty,  independent  of  reputation  and  ap 
plause,  which  marks  all  the  truly  great.  If  the  true 
author  or  artist  did  not  find  his  joy  in  his  business,  or  if 
he  had  to  wait  for  fair  remuneration  in  order  to  be  happy, 
he  would  lack  comfort  indeed,  were  he  not  even,  in  the 
Apostle's  phrase,  "of  all  men  most  miserable;"  for 
wealth  and  honor  have  but  a  cursory  and  cold  greeting 
for  supreme  merit  on  the  canvas  of  the  one  or  on  the 
page  of  the  other.  When  Moltke,  the  matchless  Prus 
sian  strategist,  who  "fights  his  battles  with  pins  in  the 
map  before  he  conquers  the  enemy  in  the  field,  and  re 
hearses  struggle  and  victory,  long  before  the  time  of  con 
flict,  in  his  capacious  brain,  was  receiving  his  abundant 
dividend  from  the  general  gloiy  of  the  army  for  a  signal 
success  over  the  Austrian  hosts,  he  said, ."I  have  a 
hatred  for  all  fulsome  praise ;  it  completely  upsets  me 
for  the  whole  day."  Let  not  our  living  benefactors  or 
their  surviving  friends  lament  that  for  services  in  peace, 
more  precious  than  trophies  of  war,  the  unappreciative 
general  public  pays  them  honor  in  small  declarations  or 
installs  as  its  favorites  inferior  men !  Flattery  is  inter 
ruption  of  study  and  diversion  from  our  affair ;  and 
scarce  ever  does  any  vivid  eulogy  discriminate  or  come 
up  to  the  worth  of  those  deceased,  whom  any  of  us 
have  well  known  and  dearly  loved.  Their  true  shrine 
is  in  our  breast.  They  run  for  sanctuary  to  a  temple 


BUSHNELL,   THE  THEOLOGIAN.  885 

within.  If  one  person  think  well  of  us,  we  are  sheltered 
enough ;  or,  if  by  none  human  we  be  understood,  we 
refer  for  judgment  to  the  One  who  is  divine.  "The 
secret  witness  of  all-judging  Jove"  was  to  the  heathen 
mind  what  a  Father's  approval  is  to  the  Christian  ;  and 
no  evolution  in  religion  will  carry  us  beyond  paganism, 
against  or  without  our  own  will.  "  Why,"  I  asked  an 
old  musician,  "  is  not  Amati  excelled  by  the  last  makers 
of  the  violin?"  "  Because,"  he  replied,  "they  do  not 
consider  it  a  holy  mission."  He  added  that  the  latest 
expert  with  the  bow  is  a  "  pygmy  to  Paganini."  It  is 
not  when  we  conform  to,  but  leave  nature  in  the  world 
and  our  own  soul,  that  we  depart  from  God.  The  arti 
ficial  is  the  harmful  as  well  as  the  false  in  our  life,  our 
manners,  and  our  worship.  "  They  showed  me,"  said 
a  pious  traveller  in  Italy,-  "  so  many  painted  Madonnas 
and  carved  crucifixes  that  I  was  sick  and  wanted  to  see 
a  cow ; "  and  verily  no  idols  in  color  or  stone,  but  the 
creatures  with  whom  our  existence  is  shared,  will  lead 
us  to  the  Creator.  We  shall  be  with  him  while  we  are 
with  them  in  love. 


25 


386  PORTRAITS. 


IV. 
THE   GENIUS   OF  WEISS. 

"IV /TEN  may  have  a  genius  for  various  and  even  for 
-L  »  J-  opposite  things,  and  it  is  with  most  persons  an 
other  name  for  irregularity,  as  we  find  or  fancy  something 
erratic  or  eccentric  in  the  orbit  which  we  have  but  partly 
traced.  A^  comet  might  be  a  figure  for  John  Weiss. 
None  who  knew  him  but  felt  that  he  was  possessed  or  un 
der  the  influence  and  control  of  a  rare  spirit,  to  hurry  or 
restrain  him,  superior  to  his  individual  self.  So  his  char 
acter  is  not  easy  to  solve.  He  was  one  and  contradictory. 
He  was  cordial,  yet  apart.  He  beamed  brightly,  yet  his 
hand  was  scarce  worth  taking,  the  grasp  was  so  cool 
and  slight.  He  was  unconventional  and  seemed  incon 
sistent.  He  had  at  times  a  womanish  petulance,  }*et  was 
without  any  will  of  his  own.  He  was  intense  in  his  aim, 
yet  so  jocose  as  to  pass  for  a  trifler.  He  was  an  original 
thinker  and  a  mime.  Men  recover  from  the  habit  of 
drinking  or  smoking,  but  never  from  that  of  wit ;  and 
he  relieved  his  seriousness,  like  Abraham  Lincoln,  with 
many  a  jest.  He  did  not  succeed  in  proportion  to  his 
powers,  but  he  was  in  his  subtle  influence  a  success. 
He  was  a  live  antinomy  and  antithesis.  Did  he  appear 
saucy,  he  was  devout.  Underneath  his  waggery  was 
awe.  Anti-supernatural  in  faith,  yet  how  supernatural 
and  preternatural  he  was  in  fact !  How  he  opposed 


THE  GENIUS   OF   WEISS.  387 

spiritualism,  yet  what  a  medium  he  was,  as  if  this  mod 
ern  Jew  had  descended  from  those  old  Hebrews  that 
dealt  with  familiar  spirits  !  But  after  one  trial  on  the 
nerves  of  others  which  frightened  the  spectators  and  the 
operator  himself  still  more,  he  did  not  dare  to  put  forth 
his  power  again.  He  felt  like  a  child  who,  touching  a 
spring,  has  drawn  a  deluge  and  set  all  the  mill-wheels 
turning.  He  resisted  the  animal  magnetism  he  pos 
sessed,  which  yet  stole  into  and  produced  in  part  the 
peculiar  electric  attraction  of  his  public  and  private 
speech.  He  was  mysterious,  and  the  wire  of  some 
telluric  current  ended  in  his  brain.  He  was  telegraphic. 
One  da}7,  miles  away  from  his  residence,  where  he  was 
at  the  time,  he  saw  out  of  sight  a  powder- train  laid  to 
an  arsenal ;  and  the  explosion  duly  took  place !  At 
another  time  and  in  another  house  he  was  fearfully  ex 
cited  at  beholding  that  some  catastrophe  was  befalling  in 
a  far-off  town,  in  which  that  very  hour  there  was  a  calam 
itous  death  by  burning,  indeed.  Swedenborg  conversed 
with  angels,  and  saw  with  spiritual  eye  a  distant  city, 
Stockholm,  in  flames.  Of  the  same  divine  madness 
"Weiss  had  some  touch. 

His  second  sight,  however,  was  unreal  sometimes.  On 
occasion  of  a  famous  regatta  between  English  and 
American  oarsmen,  on  the  Thames,  he  being  at  the 
Isles  of  Shoals,  it  had  been  arranged  that  the  captain  of 
the  English  steamer  should  announce  from  the  Ports 
mouth  shore  the  result,  by  a  single  rocket  if  the  victory 
lay  with  Oxford,  but  followed  after  a  short  interval  by 
a  second  if  Cambridge  prevailed.  One  rocket  arose,  and 
was  clearly  descried  by  the  assembled  crowd ;  and  after 
the  concerted  pause  part  of  the  company,  with  Mr.  Weiss, 


388  PORTRAITS. 

affirmed  that  they  discerned  its  fellow  cleave  the  sky. 
Five  minutes  later,  the  process  was  repeated  on  the  main 
shore  ;  and  again  Mr.  Weiss  observed,  with  many  of  his 
companions,  the  repeated  ascent,  which  from  all  the  rest 
of  the  compaii3r  was  concealed.  It  turned  out  that  there 
was  actually  but  one  rocket  in  either  case.  The  ad 
ditional  fiery  discharge  was  of  course  in  the  brain,  kindled 
with  patriotic  anticipation  of  triumph  for  our  side.  But 
to  the  perception  he  would  have  taken  his  oath  in  court. 
Indeed,  that  a  vision  occurred,  physiology  is  now  in  a 
position  to  maintain  ;  but  it  was  recurrent  cerebral  vision 
without  any  corresponding  object  in  the  air.  How  far 
science  may  go  thus  to  explain  so-called  miraculous 
visions  present  or  past,  I  leave  for  scientists  to  say. 
But  no  science  can  determine  that  all  second  sight  is 
illusory,  or  that  in  it  the  greatest  of  realities  may  not  be 
revealed.  Mr.  Weiss  had,  too,  that  singular  faculty  of 
being  impressed  with  the  character  of  a  writer  whose 
letter  he  held  in  his  hand. 

But  he  never  exchanged  his  soul  for  the  world.  An 
atheist  to  some,  an  infidel  as  construed  by  the  popular 
church,  he  yet  was,  like  Spinoza,  "drunk  with  God." 
He  resembled  his  ancestral  David,  in  that  from  the  In 
finite  Presence  he  could  not  flee.  His  piety  was  hered 
ity.  But  how  half-ashamed  to  own  he  was  pious  at  all ! 
He  said  he  so  rejoiced  in  the  phrase  ' '  still  to  be  "  in  the 
old  hymn,  when  he  awoke  in  the  morning,  that  he  had  a 
mind  to  have  family  prayers  !  Such  humor  to  a  super 
ficial  judgment  might  pass  for  irreverence.  But  there 
was  in  it  a  godly  fear  which  he  would  feel  mortified,  as 
though  he  must  be  a  Pharisee,  to  profess.  Yet  whoso 
reads  his  books  will  find  them  pervaded  in  and  between 


THE  GENIUS   OF  WEISS.  389 

the  lines  with  the  spirit  that  animated  his  heart,  illu 
mined  his  face,  intoned  his  voice,  and  bowed  in  secret 
his  knees. 

The  chime  of  opposites  which  the  man  was,  appears 
in  his  style.  How  negative  and  yet  how  positive  in 
statement  this  most  unassuming  yet  earnest  of  creatures 
was  !  Light  and  airy  as  if,  with  Mr.  Home's  leyitation, 
he  were  going  up  straightway,  yet  how  levity  was  absent 
and  gravity  present  in  every  gesture  of  his  hand  and  in 
each  stroke  of  his  pen  !  How  wrought  like  iron  was  every 
period,  and  how  girt  for  toil,  as  at  the  forge,  he  stood ! 
His  paragraphs  are  shaped  too  curiousty,  and  ham 
mered  overmuch.  The  main  stream  of  his  thought 
catches,  and  eddies,  and  returns  in  circles  without  end, 
when  it  might  seem  better,  propelled  with  his  abundant 
enthusiasm,  forthright  and  swiftly  to  proceed.  But  this 
craftsman,  with  Hebrew,  Spanish,  French,  Italian,  and 
German  blood  mingling  in  his  veins,  was  as  sturdy  as  he 
was  quick.  To  every  stint  he  put  ten  thousand  patient 
strokes.  To  get  every  notion  and  illustration  somehow 
into  the  pattern,  he  wove  the  cloth  heavy  and  thick. 
Like  George  Eliot  and  Balzac,  from  his  faithful  and 
exact  design  he  could  leave  nothing  out.  With  all  its 
vital  and  vivacious  quality,  the  dress  was  cumbrous 
and  impeding,  and,  like  many  a  wrap  on  one's  person, 
hindered  a  run.  He  cannot  be  read  at  a  glance,  or  his 
sense  gathered  if  a  word  be  skipped.  There  is  no  want 
of  lucidness  or  unity,  but  failure  rather  of  broad  stretch, 
long  flight,  and  thorough  light,  although  he  holds  with 
unrelenting  clutch  to  his  theme  ;  and  sweet  and  solid  is 
the  kernel,  however  hard  to  crack  may  be  the  shell. 

The  answer  to  any  charge  of  lightness  in  his  deport- 


390  PORTRAITS. 

ment  is  the  incessant  severity  of  his  task  ;  as  one  said, 
quoting  his  favorite  Browning, 

"  I  judge  his  childishness  the  true  relapse 
To  boyhood  of  a  man,  who  has  worked  lately 
And  presently  will  work,  so  meantime  plays ; 
Whence  more  than  ever  I  believe  in  him." 

Surely  he  was  no  ascetic.  Puritanic  abstinence  from 
good  things  he  even  despised ;  and  if  hilarity  in  him 
ever  became  an  error,  and  ran  into  excess,  then,  to  cite 

again, 

"  When  the  dead  man  is  praised  on  his  journey, 

Bear,  bear  him  along, 
With  his  few  faults  shut  up  like  dead  flowrets  : 

The  land  is  left  none  such 
As  he  on  the  bier." 

He  composed  well,  and  was  himself  a  rare  composition. 
He  desired  no  good  time  which  he  did  not  want  every 
body  else  to  have.  Innocent  and  infantine  at  heart,  he 
never  posed  for  greatness,  or  imposed  on  anybody. 
With  a  touch  of  the  Phidian  Jove  in  his  features,  he  was 
playfellow  for  a  child.  Dispute  personally  he  would 
not.  He  surrendered  in  the  battle  of  words  at  once. 
He  did  not  assert  himself  enough.  Had  he,  among  the 
debaters,  stood  more  to  his  guns,  he  would  patently  have 
been  the  greater  man  he  latently  was.  But  he  dropped 
the  controversy.  He  would  not  pick  up  the  challenger's 
glove.  He  was  even  comic  over  all  the  bravado  and 
defiant  assault.  He  filled  the  room  with  his  atmosphere 
and  his  thought,  but  not  with  any  grand,  overcoming 
personality  in  the  way  of  combat  or  defence.  He  would 
say,  "  It  is  no  matter  and  what  is  the  use?"  With  a 
glance  or  motion  he  would  penetrate  and  show  off  the 
situation,  so  that  the  initiated  would  understand  it  and 


THE   GENIUS   OF   WEISS.  391 

him  in  it,  and  then  with  a  slight  smile  or  merry  laugh 
he  would  retire.  He  had  matchless  faculty,  with  a  wink, 
a  gesture,  a  scarce  perceptible  change  of  his  coun 
tenance,  or  a  turn  of  the  head,  to  indicate  what  in  the 
matter  in  hand  was  ludicrous  and  absurd  ;  and  for  him 
this  was  an  all-sufficient  and  satisfactory  reply.  He 
fought  no  wordy  duel,  and  accepted  no  cartel.  It  were 
painful  to  him  anywise  to  contend ;  so  he  withdrew. 
If  quarrel  were  proposed,  he  was  not  there,  he  ab 
sented  himself.  Like  a  missing  second  or  contestant,  he 
did  not  appear  on  the  ground.  Indeed,  he  never  made 
an  appointment,  however  others  might,  in  his  behalf,  for 
the  fight.  How  he  differed  from  those  who  lift  the  horn 
or  insert  the  probe  at  every  possible  point !  His  spirit 
had  a  fairy-like  gift  of  travelling  far  away  from  his 
body.  He  was  like  the  benignant  and  imaginative 
Eufus  Choate  in  this  respect.  When  personal  accusa 
tion  was  to  be  met  or  an  angry  antagonist  repelled,  he 
was  not  on  the  spot !  Gracious  stillness  and  absentee 
ism  worthy  of  all  praise,  like  the  silence  and  distance 
of  that  preoccupied  Lord  and  Master,  who,  when  before 
Pilate  he  was  accused  of  many  things,  answered  noth 
ing,  practising  good  economy  in  the  household  of  faith 
and  the  kingdom  of  God  ! 

He  was  jealous  of  the  prodigious  in  all  sacred  narra 
tives.  The  anti-miraculous  temper  may  be  religious. 
Yet  perhaps  the  man  instructed  in  law  should  be  tender 
to  that  taste  for  marvels  which  he  may  remember  in  him 
self,  as  for  those  curious  volutes  and  finials  in  architec 
tural  pillars  which  add  nothing  to  the  temple's  strength. 
Some  of  the  boasted  and  registered  prodigies  to  thought 
ful  persons  not  only  sink  into  insignificance  but  become 


392  PORTRAITS.' 

an  offence.  None  of  them  can  be  more  than  the  mo 
mentary  spark  from  the  Lord's  chariot-wheels  as  they 
thunder  on  their  orderly  track.  A  wilful  leaving  or 
breaking  up  of  the  line  would  but  puzzle  the  mind,  and 
incline  it  to  feel  as  if  it  were  being  played  fast  and  loose 
with  by  the  superior  force,  with  which,  so  taunted,  it 
could  have  no  more  to  do.  God  cannot  have  opposite 
and  inconsistent  ways  of  accomplishing  the  same  thing. 
Let  us  argue  the  question  of  monsters  or  sports  of  nature 
calmly,  but  not  suppose  them  essential  to  the  creative 
plan,  or  that,  existing  or  non-existing,  they  can  for  our 
destiny  turn  one  hair  white  or  black. 

The  best  supernature  and  disclosure  of  Deity  is  that 
class  of  intellect  to  which  Mr.  Weiss  belongs.  The 
ability  so  marked  in  him  to  crowd  all  the  meaning  of 
a  topic  into  one  flaming  word  and  flashing  bolt  is  more 
divine  than  any  trick  with  matter,  however  authentic 
and  allowed ;  while  the  slight  which  Jesus  himself  was 
sometimes  disposed  to  put  upon  the  marvellous,  with 
his  uniform  subordination  of  it  to  the  moral,  shows  how 
little  it  would  in  another  have  availed  with  him. 

The  real  miracle  is  the  soul  itself  realizing  its  possi 
bilities  in  any  mood  or  act.  By  supreme  attention,  or 
by  dint  of  steady  observation,  the  human  figure  becomes 
a  statue  and  the  face  a  stupid  stare ;  and  this  person  of 
whom  I  speak  could  transport  himself  out  of  obvious  re 
lations  till  his  absorption  made  him  appear  indifferent  and 
hard.  He  had  but  refined  himself,  or  by  a  strange  en 
ergy,  doing  with  him  what  it  would,  had  been  lifted  out 
of  all  visible  ties  ;  and  if  summoned  to  a  concern  in  affairs 
or  persons  that  ought  of  right  to  interest  him  most,  he 
would  in  these  trances  declare  he  had  of  them  no  knowl- 


THE   GENIUS    OF   WEISS.  393 

edge,  not  the  least !  Let  not  the  holy  professor  or  prac 
titioner  of  every-day  proprieties  harshly  judge  this  state. 
Whoever  has  experienced  will  understand  the  preoccu 
pation  that  so  dismisses  interruption.  Did  not  the  great 
apostle  conceive  a  condition  in  which  distinctions  van 
ished,  and  there  was  no  longer  any  barbarian,  Scythian, 
male  or  female,  bond  or  free?  May  not  one  venture  to 
say  that  in  his  own  case  husband,  parent,  priest,  citi 
zen,  sometimes  fall  away,  and  he  tempts  for  a  while  that 
Northwest  passage  of  the  soul  to  some  circumpolar  sea, 
which  he  shall  traverse  at  last,  and  find  himself  in  cir 
cumstances  of  that  fresh  posture  to  all  that  is  old  or  new 
which  he  so  vividly  anticipates  now  ?  It  was  in  no  low 
or  selfish  pleasure  that  Mr.  Weiss  was  thus  rapt.  Give 
him  his  study-table,  his  book,  and  his  pen,  with  no 
noise  in  the  entry,  and  not  even  the  children  to  disturb 
him,  yet  with  whom  he  would  sit  on  the  floor  for  a  car 
nival  of  sugar-plums  by  and  by,  and  he  was  content 
with  his  celestial  situation  and  angelic  frame.  What 
was  most  affecting  at  his  obsequies  was  the  occupation 
by  so  many  sitters  of  that  very  spot  so  habitually  trans 
figured  to  him  with  the  blessed  work  to  which  he  clung 
while  it  lifted  him  like  a  cross.  It  was  as  quiet  and 
still  as  when  he  sat  there  alone.  But  all  the  more 
for  the  company  there  seemed  a  disappearance,  an  ab 
sence,  ascension,  or  vacancy  of  space  and  void  in  the 
heart,  which  he  was  but  getting  ready  to  fill  with  a  life 
intenser  and  a  beauty  more  satisfying.  Then,  as  the 
eye  turned  to  the  remote  casket  containing  the  form  of 
one  whose  peculiar  traits  could  so  easily  persuade  us  of 
the  truth  of  the  old  figure  of  men  as  but  pilgrims  here 
below,  such  a  veritable  stranger  and  sojourner  as  he  was, 


394  PORTRAITS. 

how  strongly  stirred  the  feeling  of  the  reverence  with 
which  we  should  think  and  speak,  on  the  arrival  at  such 
a  way-station  of  those  whom  we  ignorantly  call  the  dead, 
especially  when  so  extraordinary  has  been  the  manifes 
tation  which  has  so  suddenly  and  utterly  ceased.  Lo ! 
the  speechless  figure  never  lay  on  the  bed  in  slumber  so 
profound  as  now  on  the  bier.  It  can  no  longer  explain 
to  us  why  it  has  spoken  or  acted  in  past  time  thus  and 
so.  Did  it  never  defend  itself  with  recriminations? 
It  will  make  no  rejoinder  at  last !  Was  there  some 
tragedy  in  its  life  ?  Without  voice  it  begs  you  to  reflect 
how  happy  in  God's  boon  of  being  it  was  nevertheless. 
Had  sphere  and  scope  suited  to  its  powers  never  been 
afforded  by  the  contingencies  of  this  sublunar}*  lot  ?  It 
entreats  the  bystander  to  remember,  notwithstanding, 
how  content  and  grateful,  as  for  overplus  of  good,  it 
was,  and  how  seldom  and  slightly  it  complained.  Had 
it  seen  its  inferiors  exalted  to  stations  above  itself? 
It  beseeches  you  to  consider  that  at  their  privilege  or 
prosperit}'  it  never  had  a  tooth  of  envy  to  gnaw.  Had 
it,  by  bodily  infirmity,  or  by  social  disappointment  in 
any  of  its  own  supporters,  been  continually  shifted  into 
a  succession  of  diverse  posts  ?  It  bids  you  bear  in  mind 
how  pleased  as  a  child,  while  it  remained  in  any  of  them, 
it  was  with  the  kindness  and  the  opportunity  brought. 
Did  any  project  fail  to  put  it  in  desk  or  on  platform 
where,  for  its  acknowledged  talents,  the  proper  audience 
for  the  permanent  influence  would  meet?  Our  own  rec 
ollection  assures  us  that  no  feeling  of  wrong,  sense  of 
others'  deficiency,  or  baffled  ambition  of  its  own  ever 
took  away  its  courage  or  quenched  its  good  cheer.  Was 
it  suspected  of  discarding  the  fundamentals  of  religious 


THE   GENIUS   OF   WEISS.  395 

faith?  It  was  too  much  diverted  with  the  magnificent 
spectacle  of  the  world,  and  marvelled  too  much  at  the 
providential  plan,  as  it  was  too  busy  on  the  clew  of  that 
method  of  God  which  threads  the  labyrinth  of  things, 
to  be  troubled  with  excommunication  of  the  major  or 
minor  sort.  So  we  will  not  even  say, 

"  Let  them  rave  ; 
Thou  art  quiet  in  thy  grave  :  " 

for,  before  thy  dust  went  thither,  thou  hadst  the  ' '  central 
peace  subsisting  at  the  heart  of  endless  agitation,"  and 
didst  hoist  for  us  on  this  mortal  sea  one  more  signal 
for  sight  of  land. 

This  man  was  the  prey  of  his  mind,  engrossed  and 
consumed  with  his  thought.  His  blood  was  so  deter 
mined  to  his  head  that  he  seemed  to  imagine  that  an 
idea  could  save  the  world !  But  we  cannot  plant  a 
church  in  the  soil  of  abstractions,  or  grow  a  religion  on 
the  culture  of  the  brain.  On  those  in  whom  the  plate 
was  prepared,  what  a  photograph  he  impressed !  His 
soft  finger  found  the  way  in  hundreds  of  souls  to  that 
secret  place  where  he  touched  the  waiting  spring,  un 
folded  to  them  what  they  were  or  were  meant  to  be,  and 
reconstructed  or  regenerated  their  nature  while  he  made 
an  era  in  their  life  and  consoled  their  inmost  grief.  But 
he  was  so  semi-detached  from  human  existence  in  its  or- 
dinaiy  forms  that  his  language,  which  in  his  early  efforts 
was  simple,  became  at  last  multiplex  and  hard  to  spell, 
and  he  lost  the  power  to  appreciate  those  traditions  on 
which  common  folk^must  largety  feed.  There  is  pre 
cious  import  in  a  cerebral  flash.  But  the  cathedral  on 
the  corner,  which  we  gaze  at  every  day,  holds  of  a  long 


396  PORTRAITS. 

past,  and  a  future  too  ;  and  what  light  can  strain  through 
the  colored,  cobwebbed,  and  unwashed  windows  from  an 
tiquated  tales  is  of  more  worth  to  the  worshippers  within 
than  the  dark  denials  from  the  sensuous  understanding 
in  all  their  heap.  Men  must  have  nourishment ;  and 
even  if  it  be  mixed  writh  gravel  and  dirt,  it  serves  them 
better  than  the  piled  husks  of  speculation  that  have 
ceased  to  hold  corn. 

Intelligence,  in  which  the  whole  nature  acts,  is  fair  as 
the  morning,  and  promising  as  a  reaper  in  the  field. 
But  the  pure  intellect  may  be  a  selfish  cormorant  de 
vouring  the  heart !  In  the  most  disinterested  devotion 
to  fine  processes  of  argument,  that  reach  in  practice 
no  end,  we  may  become  inconsiderate  of  our  fellow- 
creatures  and  nearest  friends  or  kin.  An  involuntar}r 
and  tremendous  selfishness  threatens  the  thinker,  though 
it  be  a  Channing  or  Edwards,  on  whom  the  spirit  of  gen 
eralization  lays  its  grasp,  as  Balzac  in  one  of  his  most 
powerful  tales,  "The  Search  after  the  Absolute,"  por 
trays  a  man  sacrificing  his  family,  wife  and  child,  to  his 
insatiable  alchemistic  pursuits.  Beware  of  indulgence 
of  ideality  as  well  as  sense  !  It  has,  too,  its  excess. 
Mr.  Weiss  would  sink  in  whatever  diving-bell  or  rise  in 
whatever  balloon  would  help  him  to  survey  more  wridely 
or  dredge  more  deeply,  spending  hours  of  bliss  in  gaz 
ing  or  solitary  groping  by  himself.  Then,  rising  to 
breathe  after  the  prolonged  watch  or  endeavor,  his  soul 
would  stretch  itself,  basking  like  a  lazzarone  in  the  sun. 
His  nature,  as  we  nestle  close  to  it,  seems  one  in 
stinctively  born  for  joy,  yet  consciously  defrauded  by 
grief,  and  singing  as  in  a  far  land  the  child  Mignon's 
song,  "  What  have  they  done  to  thee?" 


THE   GENIUS    OF   WETSS.  397 


More  simple,  uncalculating  enjoyment  of  nature  man 
never  had.  Peering  through  creation,  all  became  such 
wonder  to  him  that  no  particular  wonder  was  left. 
What  would  it  signify  to  such  a  man  if  he  saw  all 
the  miracles  in  the  Bible  performed  before  his  eyes? 
They  would  melt  like  snow-flakes,  and  mingle  as  drops 
in  the  boundless  amazing  sea.  Ezra  the  Prophet  sat 
down  "  astonied  "  for  a  time  at  a  particular  thing.  But 
as  the  great  marvel  of  the  universe  is  unveiled,  all  spe 
cial  ones  are  swallowed  up  and  disappear.  The  ab 
surdity  of  prodigious  stories  was  to  Mr.  Weiss  at  once 
so  transparent  and  gross  that  he  could  scarce  patiently 
abide  their  being  told.  But  we  must  not  forget  the  office 
of  fable  as  well  as  fact,  nor  the  distinction  between  the 
artless  gospel-narrative  before  science  had  dawned  and 
the  coarse  literal  construction  now  put  upon  it  in  the 
face  and  eyes  of  scientific  truth.  I  will  not  tear  the  leaf 
that  keeps  the  picture  of  the  marriage-feast  in  Cana  of 
Galilee,  more  than  I  would  syringe  with  vitriol  Paul 
Veronese's  painting  of  rudd}^  wine  on  his  canvas  of  the 
scene.  Hunting  with  his  keen  scent  on  the  trail  of  the 
Divine  footsteps  in  the  creation,  his  brain  humming  and 
singing  with  the  snatches  of  the  rhythm  he  might  catch, 
Mr.  Weiss  lost  at  length  part  of  the  cipher  of  communi 
cation  with  his  fellow-men.  He  was,  with  manner  and 
feature  and  tone,  the  key  to  his  own  works. 

"  The  silent  organ  loudest  chants 
The  master's  requiem." 

Now  that  the  key  is  gone,  much  of  the  sense  to  most 
readers  will  be  hard  to  unlock,  or  to  those  who  know 
not  the  wards  slow  will  be  the  opening  of  the  safe.  But 
treasure  is  in  every  secret  drawer,  as  truly  as  in  Shak- 


PORTRAITS. 

speare's  sonnets  and  Browning's  plays.     Great  is  the 
•  writing,  but  greater  was  the  man. 

.Mr.  Weiss  was  handled  by  a  power  higher  than  his 
own,  and  conscious  in  his  measure  of  the  wing  that  bore 
up  Milton  and  the  check  Socrates  felt.  The  mighty 
sweep  of  the  English  bard  or  the  awful  alighting  of  the 
Greek  sage  may  not  be  repeated.  But  the  lowest  pitch 
or  faintest  flutter  in  another  spirit  proves  it  akin  to  them, 
and  fledged  in  the  same  nest  whence  came  the  singer 
that 

"  With  no  middle  flight  intends  to  soar," 

and  the  teacher  who  brought  down  wisdom  from  heaven 
to  earth.  If  not  a  genius,  he  is  possessed  with  genius  who 
is  habitually  aware  that  he  is  a  messenger  and  errand- 
bearer  in  the  employ  of  some  daimon,  as  the  ancients 
called  it,  or  the  Holy  Ghost,  according  to  the  new  dis 
pensation,  and  is  by  the  unaccountable  potency  arrested 
or  spurred  ;  and  the  person  of  whom  I  write  conspicu 
ously  exhibited  either  sign. 

An  artist  in  colors  or  words  hazards  a  little  his 
strokes,  and  lets  his  thoughts  run.  He  trusts  his  mem 
ory,  restrains  calculation,  hopes  for  inspiration,  keeps 
his  will  back,  and  thus  sometimes  compasses  a  felicity  be 
yond  elaborate  accomplishment.  So  I  let  the  present  por 
traiture  mainly  do  itself.  A  flawless  character  does  not 
exist.  Fault  is  found  with  Jesus.  The  reason  we  can 
not  describe  God  is  in  his  perfection.  As  without  back 
ground,  light,  and  shade,  there  can  be  no  picture,  so 
defects  or  dark  places  in  my  theme  show  off  great  qual 
ities,  without  feeling  which  I  would  not  treat  it  at  all. 

If  I  am  perplexed  with  the  variety  of  traits,  I  find  an 
advantage  in  their  transparency.  Mr.  Weiss  had  no 


THE   GENIUS   OF   WEISS.  399 

concealments.  If  there  were  secrets  in  his,  as  there 
should  be  in  ever}'  breast,  he  had  no  shameful  ones. 
What  he  was  he  appeared  to  be.  He  lay  open  as  the 
day.  He  wore  no  official  disguise.  He  wished  to  make 
no  impression  of  goodness.  He  made  no  reference  to 
his  conscience,  or  to  the  motives  by  which  he  was  ruled. 
Such  was  his  hatred  of  pretence  that  he  doubtless  showed 
his  worst  side.  But  he  was  an  earnest  man.  Have 
some  been  troubled  by  his  temperament,  so  like  a  rus 
tling,  changeable  silk,  or  an  opal  flashing  with  many 
hues  ?  He  was  as  steady  as  a  drill-sergeant  at  his  post. 
He  would  sit  and  not  stir  from  breakfast  to  dinner  in  his 
study,  till  his  feet  were  numb  and  cold,  while  his  head 
was  a  globe  of  light,  and  he  would  have  to  stamp  back  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  before  he  could  stand  and  walk. 
So  long  and  perfect  as  eternity  had  been  his  spiritual 
joy.  He  did  not  like  criticism,  which  yet  he  patiently 
bore.  But  he  loved  truth,  being,  as  one  who  had  plain 
dealing  from  him  said,  "  the  sincerest  person  that  ever 
lived."  He  would  not  endure  misrepresentation  in  pri 
vate,  or  the  altering  of  any  article  of  his  for  the  public. 
Should  I,  contrary  to  Cromwell's  dictate  to  an  artist, 
paint  his  complexion  with  favor  he  had  not,  he  would  ap 
pear  to  me  with  that  loudest  of  rebukes,  an  inward  one. 

He  was  a  very  particular  man.  In  large  things  or 
little,  of  the  domestic  reckoning  and  procedure,  he  must 
have  every  thing  exactly  so,  and  not  otherwise.  Into 
this  idea  he,  the  most  un wilful  of  men,  put  his  will  with 
irresistible  pressure,  even  in  his  weakest  and  sickest 
hours.  If  fifty-five  drops  of  medicine  were  to  be  taken, 
he  would  not  have  it  fifty-four.  The  order  in  every 
scrap  of  his  papers  was  precise.  Yet  his  nature  was 


400  PORTRAITS. 

Gothic  and  manifold.  He  was  not  built  on  a  simple 
plan,  like  a  hall  with  one  ceiling  and  room  ;  but  rounds 
within  rounds,  or  height  above  height,  like  those  Edin 
burgh  houses,  seven  stories  tall. 

He  believed  that  all  could  be  discovered.  He  had  no 
agnostic  despair  of  knowledge.  Any  tether  of  our  in 
telligence,  or  any  pillars  of  Hercules  to  limit  explorers, 
he  did  not  allow.  He  never  took  in  sail.  Spurning 
limits  of  human  authority,  and  vehemently  repudiating 
and  ridding  himself  of  ecclesiastical  yokes,  he  would 
not  be  confined  to  any  new  sect.  He  revolted  from  the 
pioneers  when  verbal  rules  were  stated  or  external  ob 
jects  proposed.  Perhaps  he  was  not  practical  enough. 
Certainly  out  of  any  party  traces  he  incontinently  slipped. 
He  believed  in  and  gave  himself  to  free  thought  as  an 
element,  and  was  its  organ,  but  not  organizer.  He  was 
not  belligerent  to  fight  its  battles,  save  frankly  on  the 
field  of  ideas  with  imagined  foes,  himself  a  friend,  in 
fact,  to  either  host  armed  for  the  fray.  If  there  were  a 
battery  in  his  brain,  it  was  not  commonly  loaded,  and 
never  masked,  but  kept  mostly  useless,  like  the  cannon 
I  saw  on  the  open  shore  at  Teneriffe,  marked  inutiles. 
He  was  no  coward,  yet  he  would  rather  run  than  contend 
in  the  war  of  words ;  and,  instead  of  firing  back  when 
he  had  been  shot  at,  he  would  with  a  slight  shrug  say, 
"I  see  I  have  been  misunderstood."  He  knew  his  su 
periority,  but  was  too  lowly  for  it  to  be  possible  for  him 
to  condescend. 

It  has  been  said  that  he  grew  morose  and  sorrowful 
in  his  later  years.  This  is  a  mistake.  There  was  no 
sunset  in  his  face.  There  were  straits  of  fortune,  but 
no  degradation  of  mind.  His  style,  like  that  of  Carlyle 


THE   GENIUS   OF  WEISS.  401 

after  the  essay  on  Burns,  and  of  Browning  in  the  earlier 
" Bordello,"  and  later  poems,  such  as  "The  Ring  and  the 
Book,"  in  becoming  more  compact  became  less  clear. 
Perhaps  the  condensed  meaning  did  not  always  atone 
for  the  less  melodious  strain.  But  the  man  was  never 
heated  or  sour  at  sixty  more  than  at  thirty  years  of  age. 
Neither  a  born  nor  a  trained  soldier,  he  avoided  conflict, 
unless  some  crisis  woke  him  up.  He  was  but  too  glad 
to  be  excused  from  any  fray.  Rather  than  maintain  his 
own  rights,  he  would  give  them  up.  He  made  no  push 
for  victory,  but  threw  himself  on  the  knotty  questions, 
more  tough  than  any  cords  in  the  prestidigitator's  box, 
which  no  man  has  yet  been  deft  or  strong  enough  to 
untie  ;  and  of  his  scholarly  learning,  as  of  his  ready  wit, 
there  was  no  end. 

We  are  sure  to  find  something  against  the  man  who 
differs  from  us.  His  character  will  be  at  fault  if  his 
opinion  is.  If  he  be  a  heretic,  we  shall  account  him  a 
foe.  All  his  opposition  is  bitterness,  of  course,  and  he  is 
as  preposterous  as  he  is  far  off  !  So  the  radical  will  be 
but  a  destro}Ter's  other  name.  Meantime,  the  conserva 
tive,  an  innocent  lamb  in  his  protest,  and  making  the 
freethinker  the  scapegoat  of  all  sin,  suspects  no  gall  in 
his  own  composition,  but  heaps  epithets  and  multiplies 
implications  on  the  dissenter's  head.  "Who  should 
have  a  scorn  like  the  Christian's  ?  "  said  Channing ;  but 
must  we  not  learn  who  the  Christian  is  ? 

In  this  man  a  wondrous  equanimity  steadied  an  un 
matched  sensibility.  This  magnetic  needle,  jarred  as  it 
might  be,  ever  trembled  back  to  the  pole.  His  failures 
were  in  his  constitution  or  preoccupation,  not  from  un 
fair  bias  or  wrong  intent.  For  much  defect  there  is 

26 


402  PORTRAITS. 

apology  enough  in  a  feeble  frame.  A  fine  genius  over 
wrought  by  hard  study  or  spiritual  impulse  is  not  seldom 
.  of  an  invalid  organism,  the  needful  protection  of  which 
may  nurse,  in  such  men  as  both  Weiss  and  Channing 
were,  a  certain  self-regard.  Both  physically  undertoned 
for  forty  years,  Channing's  mind  did  not  play,  but  what 
rollicking  and  excessive  liberty  everybody  had  with  Mr. 
Weiss !  Channing  considered  every  thing,  and  Weiss 
was  quite  inconsiderate  of  much  it  is  best  not  to  waive ! 
Both  had  to  be  cared  for,  and  to  care  for  themselves,  in 
order  to  keep  the  cerebral  processes,  so  unlike,  yet  in 
either  so  delicate,  in  working  trim.  Channing  was 
abstemious,  and  for  blameless  enjo3"ment  Weiss  had  a 
laughing  and  indulgent  eye.  If  Channing  stands  as  the 
colossus  at  the  harbor  of  Rhodes,  Weiss  is  a  sphinx  or 
Memnon's  statue  in  Eg}Tptian  sands  ;  and  his  light  and 
music  did  not  wane,  but  waxed,  in  the  later  years.  Exam 
ination  of  his  public  discourses  and  recollection  of  club 
debates  or  of  private  interviews  prove  in  him  a  constant 
growth.  As  the  rose-color  increases  in  windows  ex 
posed  to  the  sun,  so  his  sensuous  fanc}T  deepened ;  yet 
his  puritj'  was  evident  to  those  who  knew  him  best, 
although  he  was  no  simulator,  like  Fielding's  "  philoso 
pher  Square."  He  never  wronged  the  human  brothers 
or  sisters  whom  he  drew  with  a  strange  force,  though 
without  purpose.  Joyous  in  earthly  things,  none  made 
more  the  impression  of  one  ready  to  rise  above  them. 
There  was,  indeed,  a  singular  suggestion  of  ascending  in 
his  look  and  attitude ;  and  this,  in  the  last  photographs 
taken  of  him,  was  emphasized  by  lines  of  pain  in-  the 
features.  It  was  a  look  of  "  touch  and  go,"  as  if  his 
body  were  filled  with  ether,  and  he  were  only  held  to 


THE  GENIUS   OF   WEISS.  408 

the  ground.  Native  in  his  temper,  to  another  than  the 
New  England  climate  and  soil,  he  is  difficult  of  compre 
hension  by  our  puritanic  thought. 

Things  could  no  doubt  be  told  of  all  the  good  in  their 
early  days  by  which  their  veritable  image  would  be 
marred.  But  by  a  divine  law  of  neglect  these  little 
things  drop  from  their  images  in  the  human  heart. 
The  great  man  always  becomes  in  time  a  myth,  a  vast 
and  splendid  ideal.  He  is  taken  up  into  the  blood  of 
humanity.  He  is  incarnate  in  his  kind.  He  is  swept 
and  projected  in  the  orbit  of  history  as  an  unquench 
able  star.  Spies  for  faults  have  fancied  they  found 
that  even  such  a  man  as  Channing,  "  who  holds,"  says 
Laboula}Te,  "the  future  of  Protestantism,"  was  selfish, 
penurious,  and  proud.  He  did  not  like  to  be  discom 
posed  !  But  shall  we  listen  to  the  poor  jealousy  that 
exaggerates  foibles  and  misunderstands  the  details  it 
picks  up,  which  for  all  who  knew  the  person  pass  away 
before  the  glory  of  his  thought?  Hanging  in  the  same 
hall  of  memory  a  likeness  of  Weiss,  I  claim  for  that  the 
generous  judgment  which  is  fair. 

Mr.  Weiss's  peculiarity  was  a  hatred  of  falsehood. 
In  the  high  places  of  the  pulpit  it  is  not  prudent  to 
attack  popular  errors.  All  that  a  well-remembered 
preacher  in  this  vicinity  could  say  was,  that  he  was 
u  mighty  careful  to  tell  no  lies."  The  orator  with  his 
wind-chest  carries  all  before  him.  But  let  no  admired 
discourser  imagine  that  the  excited  throng  at  his  temple 
or  tabernacle  proves  him  on  the  line  of  advance  for 
mankind  !  When  there  was  a  multitude  Jesus  took  his 
leave.  Goethe  in  the  same  sense  describes  the  traveller 
that  goes  aside  from  the  crowd.  But  how  the  old  su- 


404  PORTRAITS. 

perstitions  and  delightful  shows  still  succeed !  As  Lord 
Bacon  says,  "  men  prefer  to  the  diamond  the  deeper- 
colored  gems."  Why  is  the  ecclesiastic  so  irritated  by 
the  question  which  a  scientist  puts,  but  that  it  reaches 
a  sore  spot,  as  the  physician's  finger  touches  the  weak 
vertebra  in  his  patient's  back  ?  O  my  brother  of  the 
clerical  cloth,  in  }^our  displeasure  under  inquiry  I  find 
the  uneasiness  of  your  own  doubt.  But  who  can 
measure  the  boon  of  loyalty  to  the  inmost  persuasions 
of  the  breast?  Our  convictions  put  us  under  oath. 
Such  writers  as  Mr.  Weiss  are  called  theorizers.  But 
nothing  is  so  important  as  correct  theories.  What  mis 
chief  from  incorrect  ones  !  The  irreligious  communist 
throws  petroleum  and  overthrows  monuments  in  France, 
and  in  America  tears  down  stations  and  interrupts 
trains.  The  Nihilist  in  Russia  murders  the  noble,  as  if 
assassination  could  be  freedom's  womb.  The  individu 
alist  everywhere  confounds  his  own  selfishness  with  uni 
versal  love,  and  would  promote  humanity  by  inhuman 
means,  imitating  the  oppressor  he  would  put  down.  But 
slavery  is  not  abolished  while  injustice  exists  from  high 
or  low.  The  deceived  and  cheated  freedman  finds  him 
self  in  Egypt  still,  and  a  new  exodus  for  his  only  hope. 

Mr.  Weiss  was  broadly  humane,  and  veracity  most 
of  all  I  note  in  him.  After  Goethe,  whom  he  loved  to 
translate,  was  over  eighty  years  of  age,  one  of  the  gen- 
tle.r  sex,  being  also  advanced  in  life,  sends  him  a  message 
to  say  his  fidelity  alone  saved  her  from  dishonor  in  a 
mutual  affection  of  their  youth.  Such  frankness  is  the 
test  of  honor.  Truthfulness  is  a  moral  trait,  and  no 
pure  intellect  can  cover  the  whole  of  human  life.  We 
do  ourselves  an  ill  turn  in  converting  heart  into  brain. 


THE   GENIUS   OF   WEISS.  405 

It  is  as  hardening  a  process  as  hepatizing  of  the  lungs. 
It  is  transmuting  gold  into  baser  metal.  The  man 
is  more  than  his  performance,  and  we  shall  not  carry 
prayer-book  or  Bible  to  heaven.  What  a  power  in  the 
death  that  suddenly  takes  our  nearest  friend  as  far  from 
our  reach  as  Adam  or  Moses !  The  man  I  speak  of, 
with  all  his  demonstrations  of  power,  could  pass  out  of 
himself  into  another,  and  be  for  the  time  like  the  crea 
ture  taking  the  color  of  the  leaf  it  is  on,  becoming 
Browning  or  Shakspeare,  the  English  or  Greek  drama 
tist,  of  whom  he  so  well  discoursed.  Swept  by  the  wind 
of  that  mighty  planet,  Parker,  he  put  on  for  a  while  his 
st}*le  of  pungent  and  forthright  speech,  with  the  phalanx 
of  facts  in  battle  array.  But  that  intellectual  influence 
passed,  and  with  a  subtilty  of  logic  and  fancy  wholly  out 
of  Parker's  compass  or  beat,  he  became  as  ingenious  and 
parenthetical  as  the  Apostle  Paul.  Like  Paul,  he  had 
such  raptures  that  he  can  scarce  be  more  conscious  of  his 
immortality  in  heaven  than  he  was  at  times  on  the  earth. 
I  do  not  present  him  as  an  image  of  perfection.  Perhaps 
he  did  not  even  think  it  important  or  intended  for  any 
one  to  be  without  speck  !  Had  he  been  a  cunning  pre 
tender,  like  some  men  and  clergymen,  he  might  have 
passed  for  a  saint.  But  to  him  the  assumption  of 
holiness  was  so  odious  that  he  bordered  on  scorn  for 
conventional  righteousness,  and  took  up  the  Lord's 
apologies  for  such  as  love  had  led  into  sin.  Yet  by  his 
mercy,  like  the  Master's,  the  moral  quality  was  only 
emphasized,  and  never  slurred  or  blurred.  The  his 
trionic  actor  of  virtue  he  would  laugh  at ;  but  Christ's 
not  shunning  the  disrepute  of  keeping  low  company  he 
admired,  and  he  indulged  in  merry-makings  which  no 


406  PORTRAITS. 

true  descendant  of  the  Puritans  can  be  expected  to 
abide.  But  whatever  spots  were  on  or  suspected  in 
him,  his  substantial  excellence  is-  as  blazing  as  .the  sun. 
His  affections  were  like  those  of  Montaigne,  who  said 
he  was  blunt  and  faint  to  such  as  he  most  truly  be 
longed  to.  You  could  not  tell,  by  any  oath  or  profession 
on  his  part,  how  much  he  cared  for  you,  though  you  were 
brother  of  his  very  mind  and  heart.  His  regard  would 
be  literally  in  his  look,  in  his  manner,  or  in  some  hu 
morous  epithet  on  meeting  his  friend.  But  he  loved 
as  intensely  as  he  thought,  as  Bonaparte  said  of  his 
feeling  that  it  had  the  measure  of  his  mind.  There  are 
but  two  things,  loving  and  being  loved,  and  the  chief 
pleasure  of  the  last  to  a  noble  soul  is  in  the  lover's  own 
delight. 

Mr.  Weiss  was  often  like  the  man  up  in  a  balloon  who 
cannot  give  us  a  cup  of  cold  water  down  below.  Raph 
ael  and  Ary  Scheifer,  in  their  pictures  of  the  transfig 
ured  or  consolatory  Christ,  represent  figures  that  flock 
for  healing  and  help,  and  yet  must  wait  wistfully  under 
neath  with  eager  gaze  and  outstretched  hand.  Eleva 
tion  is  purchased  at  a  dear  price  in  exchange  for  open 
sympatlry  ;  for  we  do  not  credit  the  interest  that  is  hid. 
But  Mr.  Weiss  was  nothing,  if  not  true.  He  said  naught 
which  had  to  be  explained  &w&y.  Who  has  not  known 
the  brilliant  man  in  politics  and  the  fine  woman  of  so 
ciety,  by  their  accommodation  and  compromise  of  prin 
ciple,  to  contract  a  blindness  which  no  as3*lum  can  shel 
ter  or  operator  cure  ?  Put  cunning  for  conscience  in  the 
desk  and  the  school,  and  we  have  an  education  leav 
ing  the  spiritual  eye  unopened,  like  that  of  the  fish  in 
the  Mammoth  Cave.  But  if  unsealing  the  vision  or 


THE  GENIUS   OF  WEISS.  407 

widening  the  horizon  be  a  greater  benefit  than  bread  to 
the  hungry  or  clothing  to  the  naked,  how  many  have 
had  a  benefactor  in  the  friend  of  whom  I  speak  ! 

Mr.  Weiss  was  a  discerner  of  spirits.  He  could  ap 
praise  character,  admire  the  hero,  and  yet  see  his  defects. 
In  the  courageous  Parker,  who  converted  him  to  philan- 
throp^y,  he  noted  the  combative  and  doughty  self  not 
quite  absorbed  in  his  cause  ;  in  Webster,  a  complete  dig 
nity,  but  not  on  the  highest  plane ;  in  the  humane  and 
heroic  Sumner,  a  slight  pedantry,  so  that  the  majestic 
American  crisis  could  not  make  him  pass  by  Greece  and 
Rome,  or  forget  his  own  name ;  in  Seward,  the  politic 
prophet ;  in  Lincoln,  the  true  seer  ;  and  in  John  Brown, 
a  simple  utter  earnestness. 

Doubtless  he  took  the  wrong  side  of  the  question  some 
times,  or  argued  it  with  bad  taste.  He  turned  the  wine 
into  water,  as  he  ridiculed  the  turning  of  water  into  wine. 
He  dramatized  sometimes  as  a  performer  when  perfect 
simplicity  would  have  been  more  in  place.  He  rushed 
asphyxiated,  so  he  said,  from  the  room  when,  in  war 
time  at  a  conference,  pra}*er  was  proposed  instead  of  ac 
tion  in  the  field !  He  was  alternately  angel  and  imp,  yet 
not  of  mischief,  there  being  no  cruelty  in  him,  but  only 
roguish  sport.  His  real  and  manifold  nature  could  be 
suppressed  by  no  official  proprieties.  Dainty,  dreamy, 
and  luxurious  in  his  imagination,  that  parochial  visiting, 
which  is  half  of  the  minister's  duty,  was  to  him  an  un 
welcome  and  dragging  routine,  by  his  neglect  of  which 
his  usefulness  and  acceptableness  in  some  situations  were 
stayed.  To  the  tiresome  many,  with  all  their  petty  crosses 
and  cares,  he  preferred  the  society  of  the  like-minded 
and  the  congenial  few.  He  indulged  his  preference,  and 


408  PORTRAITS. 

paid  the  price.  Perhaps  he  was  not  patient  enough  with 
the  slow  intellectual  progress  of  mankind.  "  He  dug  his 
carrots  in  August,"  and  wished  to  reap  prematurely  from 
the  seed-sowing  of  truth.  He  was  vexed  with  the  tardy 
settlement  of  the  national  strife  ;  and  although  not  sol 
dierly  as  Parker  was,  yet,  like  him,  he  foreshadowed  the 
sword.  He  was  credited  with  self-assurance  in  some 
quarters,  and  I  have  heard  the  term  flippant  applied  to 
his  style.  But  there  was  an  infinite  tenderness  and  a 
tremulous  timidity  under  his  audacity  ;  and  I  doubt  not 
that  his  early  and  faithful  preaching  on  temperance  and 
against  slavery  cost  him  many  an  inward  struggle,  as 
well  as  favor  with  men  whose  friendship  it  pained  him 
to  lose.  When  I  add  that  his  nervous  s}'stem,  at  once 
so  mighty  and  so  weak,  and  ever  threatening  to  give 
way,  braced  itself  with  whatever  joviality  was  at  hand, 
I  have  told  every  thing  against  him  that  I  know. 

Humor  in  him  was  essential  and  inwrought.  When, 
after  a  nearly  twelve-month  prostration  b}T  disease,  it 
was  necessary  for  him  to  have  a  nurse,  he  looked  her 
curiously  over  when  she  was  introduced  into  the  room, 
then  begged  a  moment's  private  interview  with  his  faith 
ful  and  unweariable  wife,  and  with  a  twinkle  bright  and 
wet  in  his  e37e,  said  to  her,  "You  have  added  a  new  ter 
ror  to  death ! " 

He  was  deeply  religious,  even  while  by  his  smiles, 
like  the  eddies  that  dimple  the  unfathomed  tarn,  his 
pious  emotions  were  hid.  His  early  tender  feeling  for 
Jesus  never  ceased,  although  his  view  of  the  Christ's 
Messiahship,  kingship,  and  mediatorship  widely  changed. 
But  Jesus  never  became  to  him  a  mere  man.  There  is 
no  mere  man ! 


THE   GENIUS   OF   WEISS.  409 

Every  thing  substantial,  save  the  absolute  substance, 
has  its  shadows.  They  are  cast  even  by  sublime  virtues 
and  transcendent  gifts.  But  the  measure  of  merit,  as 
the  poet  Burns  hints,  is  in  what  we  resist  as  well  as  in 
what  we  do ;  and  how  incomparable  a  trait  is  an  irre 
proachable  sanctity  in  those  who,  like  Mr.  Weiss,  fasci 
nate  and  allure !  He  was  exposed  to  misconstruction 
by  the  playfulness  on  which  he  put  no  check.  He  could 
not  walk  the  streets  like  a  doctor  of  divinity.  Instead 
of  wearing  a  minister's  garb,  he  did  not  know  or  care 
what  he  had  on.  As  he  had  no  pride  of  dress,  so  he 
did  not  disguise  his  thoughts  with  any  false  trick.  He 
towered  amid  our  overshadowing  pulpit-reputations  with 
out  taking  pains.  In  intellectual  probity  he  was  never 
surpassed.  Happy  if  those  of  more  note  and  noise 
really  articulate  the  spirit  in  those  syllables  and  sen 
tences  which  are  the  trite,  coinage  of  the  common  air ! 

Not  because  Mr.  Weiss  was  less  but  more  religious, 
he  discarded  the  ecclesiasticism  that  puts  for  worship  a 
show,  for  faith  superstition,  for  the  wondering  sentiment 
a  blank  surprise,  and  some  proxy  or  substitute  of  sense 
for  God,  Christ,  or  heaven.  That,  with  a  portentous 
temperament  and  a  handwriting  like  fine  sword-thrusts, 
he  could  have  such  geniality  in  strife,  can  be  accounted 
for  perhaps  by  early  shocks  which  made  it  impossible 
for  him  to  copy  others'  rage,  and  by  his  own  keen  per 
ception  that  whoever  gets  angry  gives  up  the  game. 
The  Spartans  shamed  their  children  out  of  intemper 
ance  b}*  showing  their  helots  drunk  ;  and  to  a  sensitive 
soul  one  pattern  is  warning  enough  against  the  worse 
intoxication  of  wrath,  sometimes  seen  in  those  who  ab 
stain  from  wine. 


410  PORTRAITS. 

The  man  whom  I  celebrate  did  not,  in  his  logic,  his 
rhetoric,  or  ideas,  spare  the  antagonist  side.  But,  as  he 
would  give  his  last  dollar  to  some  poor  German  at  the 
door,  and  have  nothing  left  to  pay  his  passage  in  the 
car,  I  think  he  has  reached  the  gate,  as  he  has  taken 
the  journey,  which  requires  no  ticket  or  entrance-fee. 
Undeceived  by  loud  pretensions,  and  making  light  of 
this  world's  pomp  and  personal  dignity,  he  was  only 
half  liked  by  such  as  had  "reverence  large,"  and  he 
displayed  little  of  that  sociable  talent  which  makes  the 
minister  popular  with  his  flock.  But  his  nature  was  mu 
sic  ;  and  the  great  symphonies  pleased  him  as  echoes  of 
the  harmony  of  the  spheres.  Somewhat  of  Beethoven 
was  in  him,  and  he  has  gone  where  he  hears  the  dis 
cords  no  more.  He  argued  for  "  personal  continu 
ance,"  and  was  one  of  its  best  proofs.  There  must  be 
more  fuel  for  such  a  flame !  It  is  more  than  that  on 
which  it  is  fed.  Immortality  is  no  fact  of  chronology, 
but  that  state  of  mind  which  implies  the  other  side  of 
the  grave.  Faith  is  its  own  foundation.  The  soul  is 
not  at  rest  on  the  earth,  as  the  bird  is  not  as  easy  in  the 
branches  or  on  the  ground  as  on  its  perch  of  air.  That 
constituency  of  an  intellectual  and  spiritual  brotherhood 
and  sisterhood  by  which  he  is  mourned  and  whose  fan 
cies  he  refined  so  exquisitely,  while  he  raised  their  ideas 
of  God  and  nature  to  the  utmost  pitch,  will  find  in  his 
own  so  extraordinary  traits  the  demonstration  of  his 
hope  and  their  own.  Bright  as  was  his  intelligence,  it 
was  but  the  lustre  of  a  loving  soul,  as  the  flashes  of  day 
proceed  from  the  heat  and  body  of  the  sun.  For  he 
too  was  "  a  burning  and  a  shining  light." 

The  personal  appearance  of  Mr.  Weiss  was  as  remark- 


THE   GENIUS   OF   WEISS.  411 

able  as  his  mind.  Soft  lines  of  manly  beauty  enclosed 
his  olive-colored  Oriental  features,  and  his  fluent,  half- 
feminine  form.  His  figure,  in  middle  life,  was  so  thin 
and  sepulchral  that  one  said  he  seemed  to  have  ridden 
from  Mount  Auburn  into  Boston,  to  preach  and  then 
return ;  and  Theodore  Parker,  observing  his  extraordi 
nary  delicacy  and  death-like  look,  pronounced  him  a 
doomed  man,  little  thinking  that  his  friend  would  be  his 
biographer,  and  survive  himself  by  nearly  a  score  of 
years.  Yet,  nearing  his  sixty-first  birthday,  his  temples 
edged  with  white,  he  made  no  impression  of  age,  but 
surprised  us  as  with  an  unfading  spring.  Still,  like  a 
fountain,  boiled  and  bubbled  the  kindly  mirth,  which 
severe  and  repeated  attacks  of  disease  could  not  check. 
His  constitutional  quality  of  strangely  blended  tender 
ness  and  strength  issued  in  the  singularity  of  his  voice, 
which,  in  its  ordinary  level  tones  and  easy  inflections, 
had  a  mellowness  that  no  woman's  utterance  could  ex 
ceed,  and  among  men  was  beyond  compare,  yet  as, 
in  passages  of  great  excitement,  it  rose  and  stooped, 
was  touched  with  the  sibyl's  frenzy,  and  burst  into  a 
prophet's  scream.  As  thunder  is  followed  by  rain,  his 
figurations  ended  in  tears.  His  fancy  was  a  kaleido 
scope  or  painter's  palette,  where  not  a  pigment  was 
wanting,  and  sometimes  the  colors  got  mixed  and  con 
fused.  The  sublime  bordered  in  his  style  on  the  funny, 
and  the  pathetic  joined  the  grotesque.  He  could  be 
majestic  or  tricksy,  Prospero  or  Puck,  and  not  seldom 
Ariel  too.  He  relished  clown  and  buffoon  as  well  as 
king  or  courtier  in  the  play.  He  enacted  others,  and 
was  a  seer  himself.  As  well  blame  a  mocking-bird  for 
its  changeful  notes,  or  a  flamingo  for  the  flashing  of  its 


412  PORTRAITS. 

crimson  wings,  or  the  natural  sky  for  its  heat-lightning 
after  stormy  claps,  as  this  finer  alterativeness  in  human 
shape.  But  one  thing,  his  courage,  never  shifted  or 
flinched.  When  Suinter  is  fired  at,  or  bondage  grasps 
new  soil,  even  the  stupid  feel  the  shock,  and  start  to 
their  feet.  But  men  sleep  on  when  insidious  supersti 
tion  would  buy  up  free  thought,  and  moor  worship  to 
preposterous  traditions  and  discredited  forms.  This 
slumber  none  was  more  brave  than  Mr.  Weiss  to  dis 
turb.  He  would  fain  rend  the  veil  of  the  Bible  mythol 
ogy  wholly  off. 

But  this  radical  was  to  the  last  the  Christian  which  he 
would  have  smiled  away  any  summons  to  him  to  claim 
or  confess  to  be !  Of  the  earthly  form  of  our  friend 
naught  is  left.  But  something  remains.  Love  is  un 
quenchable  by  all  the  waters  that  flow  through  the  dark 
valley  and  shadow  of  death.  Cord  and  wheel  and 
pitcher  and  bowl  break  and  dissolve.  But  that  in  a 
man  which  is  composed  of  no  one  or  all  of  these  things 
abides  and  lives.  We  will  not  repine  at  death.  With 
out  it  is  no  progress  on  a  higher  plane.  ,  The  thought 
would  tire  us  of  living  for  ever  in  these  carnal  swathings 
and  first  swaddling-clothes. 


GARRISON,   THE  REFORMER.  413 


V. 

GARRISON,   THE  REFORMER. 

IT  is  hard  to  certify  the  real  author  of  any  benefit,  in 
vention,  or  revolution.  Did  Columbus,  or  Americus 
Vespuccius,  or  somt  Northman  or  Norwegian,  or  an  emi 
grant  tribe  from  the  East,  first  discover  the  Western 
World  ?  Into  whose  field  of  view  did  the  new  planet  first 
swim?  By  whom  was  etherization  found  out?  Did 
Newton  and  Darwin  make  their  own  discoveries,  or  does 
the  credit  belong  to  predecessors  who  put  them  on  the 
track  ?  Who  was  Jesus  but  the  fulfiller  of  Jewish  proph 
ecy,  a  man  who  got  his  hints  from  its  antecedents,  a 
flower  or  century-plant  of  which  Providence  dropped 
obscurely  the  seed  ?  Was  slavery  abolished  by  Abra 
ham  Lincoln,  by  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  by  Clarkson 
and  Wilberforce,  or  by  John  Brown?  By  no  one  of 
them  or  all,  we  are  now  told,  but  by  the  early  martyrs 
in  this  country  of  the  Methodist  Church.  There  is  more 
than  one  who  cries  in  the  wilderness,  who  explores  the 
desert  or  pioneers  in  the  woods.  No  Alexander  Sel 
kirk  but  comes,  as  he  treads  the  sandy  shore,  upon 
other  tracks  besides  his  own.  The  human  race  is  old, 
and  sends  more  than  one  scout  in  every  direction  ;  and 
if  one  man  cries  out  ' '  Land  "  a  little  sooner  than  the 
rest  of  the  sailors  in  the  vessel,  it  is  only  because  he  is 
by  chance  at  the  mast-head.  Mankind  has  a  total  move- 


414  PORTRAITS. 

ment,  as  all  its  members  are  but  one  body;  but  its 
common-sense  singles  out  and  settles  down  upon  the 
particular  persons  who,  as  it  wins  one  after  another  po 
sition,  gave  the  word  "  Forward,  march  !  "  and  Garrison 
will  be  in  history  the  u  Liberator,"  even  as  so  his  news 
paper  was  called. 

When  we  consider  what  a  moral  way-station  was 
reached  on  this  continent,  inaccessible  as  by  the  almost 
unanimous  voice  it  had  been  declared,  and  that  what  the 
young  man  predicted  the  old  man  Garrison  saw,  —  that 
an  infamy  unparalleled  became  for  him  universal  fame  ; 
that  having  been  hated  and  hunted  during  most  of  his 
life,  he  died  in  the  uncontradicted  love  and  honor  of  his 
nation  and  the  human  race,  and  in  the  odor  of  sanctity, 
like  a  catholic  saint,  —  old  Simeon's  willingness  to  de 
part  in  peace  because  a  child  had  been  born  seems 
trifling  to  this  man's  reason  for  joy  in  the  discharge  of 
his  mission,  and  to  the  sublime  attitude  in  which  great 
events  placed  him  at  his  mortal  end. 

Herein  lay  his  greatness,  that,  ironclad  warrior  as 
he  had  been  for  more  than  a  score  of  years,  it  was 
not  necessary  to  his  happiness  to  continue  to  fight. 
They  surely  had  noble  and  honorable  motives  who 
would  keep  up  the  antislavery  organization  after  the 
slaves  were  freed,  in  order  to  defend  and  protect  those 
wards  of  philanthropy  who  in  their  first  tottering  steps 
were  still  so  exposed.  But  was  it  not  also  grand  in 
the  leader  to  wish  to  ground  arms  and  dissolve  wThen 
the  object  was  attained,  as  it  was  generous  to  insist  on 
sharing  the  laurels  of  the  victory,  for  which  he  would 
not  have  waged  war,  with  the  President  who  had  signed 
the  proclamation  he  was  so  soon  to  seal  with  his  blood  ? 


GAKEISON,   THE  REFORMER.  415 

It  was  just  no  less  ;  for  when  the  bullet  pierced  Lincoln's 
brain,  slavery  did  not  in  its  aim  mistake  the  foe !  He 
had  said  he  would  save  the  nation  without  destining 
slavery,  if  he  could.  But  he  would  not  let  slavery  de 
stroy  the  nation,  by  whose  destruction  he  knew  a  com 
mon  ruin  would  involve  both  black  and  white.  The  glory 
of  any  man  is  in  his  unselfish  design  ;  and  by  an  equal 
devotion  both  of  these  men  were  marked.  The  people 
smiled  with  humor  and  gazed  with  admiration  at  the 
abolitionists  who,  banded  in  the  early  struggle  so  closely 
together  against  the  monstrous  iniquity  they  assailed, 
did  not  in  the  later  stages  of  the  conflict  spare  each  other 
in  any  difference  of  view.  But  all  the  rest  of  them  were 
singularl}'  indisposed  to  bring  into  question  the  one  at 
their  head !  There  was  no  mutiny  with  the  captain 
among  the  troops.  They  knew  his  truth !  No  one  in 
the  ranks  more  vehemently  than  he  denounced  what  was 
proslavery  in  the  Constitution  and  administration  of  the 
land.  The  terrible  phrases,  the  sharp  catchwords, 
the  mottoes  on  the  banner,  or  proverbs  in  the  mouth, 
came  mostly  from  his  lips  and  pen.  It  was  as  difficult 
for  him  as  for  anybody  else  that  ever  fought  for  a  cause 
to  believe  in  the  entire  honesty  of  such  as  did  not  in 
judgment  or  action  agree  with  him.  Yet  he  did  not  wish 
them  to  be  branded  or  stained.  It  was  not  hatred  of 
the  sinners  so  much  as  horror  at  the  sin  that  moved  him 
to  his  task ;  and  his  disinterestedness  had  at  least  the 
reward  of  a  tender  consideration  for  himself  in  all  his 
intercourse  with  his  associates,  whatever  dissension 
might  arise.  In  the  long  course  of  human  controversy 
nothing  is  more  affecting  than  the  gentleness  shown  to 
Garrison  by  those  co-laborers  in  their  conflicts  of  policy, 


416  PORTRAITS. 

as  they  came  like  Paul  and  Barnabas,  to  the  parting  of 
the  ways.  They  behaved  better  than  did  Barnabas  and 
Paul !  This  mildness  for  him,  as  with  a  spiritual  father, 
will  be  remembered  especially  in  one  still  living,  whose 
name  will  shine,  when  his  form  may  vanish,  with  the  name 
of  Garrison  as  does  the  blended  lustre  of  a  binary  star. 

After  the  storm  what  a  charm  we  feel  in  the  beauty 
of  the  serene  sky,  as  it  bends  over  land  and  sea  under 
the  reflection  of  the  sun,  that  seems  to  have  its  setting 
not  only  in  the  horizon,  but  in  every  rock  and  wave  and 
leaf  on  the  tree  !  The  brightness  of  such  a  living  calm 
was,  during  the  latter  3~ears,  in  Garrison's  face.  He  wore 
a  strange  and  sublime  look  of  satisfaction  and  of  com 
pleted  desire.  Other  things,  indeed,  after  the  great 
emancipation  filled  his  time  and  interested  his  mind,  — 
temperance,  woman's  rights,  a  fair  chance  in  our  poli 
tics  for  the  negroes,  and  justice  to  the  Chinese.  But 
the  work  he  had  done  was  so  vast  that  every  thing  else 
appeared  but  as  an  afterpiece,  the  consequence  of  the 
peculiar  deliverance,  and  the  ingathering  of  the  fruit 
that  follows  the  shaking  of  the  boughs.  No  one,  how 
ever,  could  notice  any  slackening  in  his  activity  or  cool 
ing  of  his  zeal.  Whatever  measure  of  legislation  or  of 
associated  enterprise  he  might  espouse  or  oppose,  he 
showed  the  same  independence  of  opinion  and  proced 
ure,  and  that  superiority  to  human  fear  or  favor  which 
was  in  his  original  grain. 

In  the  idea  held  of  Garrison  among  most  intelligent 
and  good  men  forty  years  ago,  he  was  but  a  town-crier 
and  bell-ringer  disturbing  quiet  people  with  his  noise ; 
or  a  new  sort  of  Peter  the  Hermit  provoking  an  imprac 
ticable  and  profitless  crusade,  acrid  in  his  own  temper 


GARRISON,   THE  REFORMER.  417 

and  charging  baseness  on  the  millions  who  would  not 
adopt  his  means.  But  the  fact  that  his  enterprise  was 
neArer  forlorn  or  hopeless  in  his  own  mind  proves  that 
he  had  a  faith,  be}*ond  that  of  his  censors,  in  mankind ! 
He  felt  it  was  impossible  that  when  they  perceived  their 
sins  they  should  not  renounce  them.  That  he  was  bitter 
against  the  crime  of  slavery  was  not  the  ugliness  but  the 
beauty  of  the  man.  Is  not  the  physician  disqualified 
and  guilty  of  malpractice  who  cannot,  on  occasion,  pre 
scribe  pills  of  wormwood  and  draughts  of  gall  ?  Garri 
son's  bitterness  was  to  Garrison  no  more  than  is  the 
pungency  in  the 'seed  that  gives  the  delicious  flavor  to 
the  berry  and  fruit.  "  Purge  me  with  hyssop,"  cries 
David,  "  and  I  shall  be  clean  ;  "  and  our  reformer  showed 
himself  skilful  in  his  selection  and  application  of  the 
needful  and  virtuous  herbs  !  The  sweet  voice  and  sunny 
face  and  benign  temper,  that  made  the  music  and  light 
and  air  of  his  dwelling,  and  were  to  wife  and  children  a 
perpetual  charm,  were  not  thrown  off  like  an  outside 
garment  in  order  that  he  might  be  an  east- wind  to  op 
ponents  and  a  public  scold.  He  was  a  genial,  generous, 
and  honorable  foe  to  men  in  their  bad  customs  ;  but  he 
hated  no  man,  North  or  South.  Those  from  either  sec 
tion  who  met  him  delighted  in  his  presence  and  in  his 
talk  ;  and  among  the  S3'mpathizers  in  his  aim  he  was  the 
most  gracious  and  meny  of  the  band,  which  he  at  first, 
according  to  the  Master's  example,  wanted  to  be  of  the 
number  of  twelve.  In  one  of  the  earliest  assemblies  of 
the  faithful,  on  premises  which  had  formerly  served  for  a 
barn,  he  congratulated  the  company  that  they  had  got 
footing  at  last  "  on  a  stable  foundation  ;  "  and  after  some 
who  were  present,  to  whom  the  prospect  seemed  gloomy, 

27 


418  PORTRAITS. 

had  spoken  in  a  melancholy  strain,  he  surprised  his  male 
and  female  disciples  with  the  quotation  of  a  familiar  poet 
ical  quatrain :  — 

"  Oli,  come  on  some  cold  rainy  day, 

When  the  birds  cannot  show  a  dry  feather; 
Bring  your  sighs  and  your  tears,  Granny  Gray  ; 
Let  us  all  be  unhappy  together !  " 

But  misery  was  no  visitor  in  his  house  or  heart.  In  his 
convictions  he  was  tranquil,  and  in  his  affections  he  was 
fervent  and  even  gay.  An  earnest  man,  saying  of  preva 
lent  dispositions  and  actions  what  he  thinks,  is  quite  un 
conscious  of  the  severity  which  his  language  imports  to 
the  listening  ears.  He  is  concerned  only  with  delivering 
his  message,  to  bear  testimony  and  tell  the  truth.  To 
describe  the  situation,  not  to  stigmatize  any  particular 
individuals  who  are  involved  in  making  it,  is  his  intent. 
But  the  prophet  must  roll  off  his  burden  on  whomsoever 
it  may  roll ;  and  Garrison  was  another  Micah  to  rebuke 
our  unmeaning  sacrifices  and  hypocritical  forms. 

Mr.  Garrison  was  of  a  nature  so  peaceful  that  he  was. 
a  non-resistant  by  profession,  yet  he  was  such  a  re 
specter  of  others'  freedom  of  thought  and  behavior  that 
he  would  put  no  obstacle  of  paternal  authority  against 
his  son's  decision  to  enlist  for  the  civil  war,  which, 
strangely  enough,  this  hater  of  all  violence  or  of  ap 
peals  to  arms  did  more  than  any  other  man,  uninten 
tionally,  to  provoke.  In  his  philosophy  we  may  think 
him  wrong.  He  assumed  that  non-resistance  is  a  prin 
ciple,  when  it  is  but  a  way,  and  only  one  among  many,  — 
a  Christian  precept,  precious  as  enjoining  a  spirit  of  for 
bearance,  but  not  intended  or  acceptable  as  an  invaria 
ble  rule.  It  cannot  be  held  as  a  principle,  as  it  is  but  a 


THE   REFORMER.  419 


mode  of  action,  or  rather  non-action  ;  and  a  principle 
will  prescribe,  according  to  circumstances,  diverse  and 
even  opposite  w&ys  in  which  to  act.  Non-resistance 
is  passivity;  but  we  must  act.  Truth  is  a  principle, 
righteousness  is  a  principle,  and  love  is  a  principle  ; 
but  whether  these,  one  or  all,  shall  dictate  defence  of 
ourselves  and  our  cause,  or  submission  without  a  blow, 
depends  on  the  case  in  hand,  the  prospect  of  suc 
cess,  the  born  soldier's  inspiration  of  courage,  and  the 
providence  of  God.  To  yield  up  a  State  to  insurgents 
against  its  lawful  voters'  will  without  a  stroke,  if  its 
government  be  pushed  to  that  pass,  were  political  trea 
son  and  desertion  of  a  divinely  allotted  post.  Temper 
ance  is  a  principle  ;  but  total  abstinence  is  a  method, 
which  individuals  may  practise,  or  laws  attempt  to 
enforce.  To  denounce  as  unprincipled  any  persons 
who  decline  to  use  and  urge  this  method  is  falsehood 
and  slander  combined,  until  the  proof  is  made  out  of 
poison  in  ever}T  drop  of  wine  for  the  sick  and  fainting  by 
the  way,  and  for  the  communicant  at  the  Lord's  table, 
although  the  evil  of  strong  drink  is  so  dreadful  that 
it  seems  natural,  if  not  excusable,  for  the  sake  of  human 
safety,  to  confound  a  temporary  measure  with  a  divine 
law.  Yet  none  more  than  the  zealous  reformer  should 
remember  that  the  principle  of  temperance  applies  prop 
erly  to  every  passion  of  our  nature,  motion  of  our  hand, 
and  word  on  our  tongue. 

But  if  by  temperance  we  mean,  be  the  wind  with 
others  high  or  low,  to  pursue  the  even  tenor  of  one's 
way,  a  more  sober  man  than  Garrison  never  lived.  His* 
course  was  that  of  a  planet,  which  can  be  predicted  to 
the  end.  Nothing  could  be  more  barren  or  strong  than 


420  PORTRAITS. 

his  style.  Justice  being  his  point,  and  infallible  recti 
tude  his  line,  he  succeeded  by  dint  of  continuance  and 
repetition.  After  many  a  stroke  of  a  hammer  at  the 
same  place  on  a  ledge,  or  on  the  trunnion  of  a  cannon, 
stone  and  iron  give  way.  A  succession  of  sounds  in  a 
chamber,  if  the}^  be  not  usual  and  monotonous,  like  the 
sighing  of  the  wind  or  the  ticking  of  a  clock,  will  arouse 
one  from  the  heaviest  sleep.  What  we  incessantly 
and  importunately  and  rightly  pray  for,  be  it  the  con 
solation  of  sorrow,  improvement  of  character,  or  king 
dom  of  God,  will  surely  come  !  The  abolition  of  slavery 
was  Garrison's  aim  and  cry,  and  the  unwritten,  never 
omitted,  punctually  recited  liturgy  of  his  soul.  He  not 
only  persisted ;  he  was  perseverance  incarnate,  and  he 
was  equity,  too.  He  wanted,  in  a  friend's  house,  to 
pay  for  a  pane  of  glass  which  he  had  chanced  to  break. 
"A  just  weight  and  balance  is  the  Lord's,"  and  was 
Garrison's.  He  awoke  the  nation  at  last,  called  down 
Heaven's  decree  by  stress  of  his  petition,  and  broke  the 
fetters  of  the  slave  by  his  tremendous  claim.  Beyond 
good  sense,  a  grasp  of  moral  ideas  and  of  historical 
details,  his  intellect  was  not  richly  endowed.  Com 
pared  with  some  of  his  own  comrades,  he  had  a  meagre 
mind.  His  merit  was  ordinary  as  a  poet  or  occasional 
bard.  He  was  not  as  eloquent  as  some  of  his  compeers, 
yet  his  voice,  more  than  theirs,  was  loaded  with  a 
power  as  of  fate.  He  was  not  Aaron  persuading  the 
people,  but  Moses  with  his  laws ;  and  on  the  tables, 
not  of  rock,  but  of  men's  hearts,  he  got  them  finally 
engraved.  He  took  by  long  siege,  and  overthrew  our 
old  feudal  castle  of  bondage,  our  bastile  of  oppression, 
by  no  ingenious  search  and  manifold  trial  of  its  vulnera- 


GARRISON,   THE  REFORMER.  421 

ble  points,  but  by  one  catapult  at  the  nailed  and  knotty 
gates.  It  was  a  greater  triumph  than  that  at  Vicks- 
burg.  He  was  omnipotent  for  that  supreme  blow,  was 
raised  up  for  that  purpose  as  much  as  the  Isaiah  or 
Amos  he  loved  to  quote  were  for  their  Hebrew  mission, 
and  in  comparison  he  was  good  for  nothing  else.  He 
was  the  ox}Tgen  in  our  air,  and  embodied  the  con 
science  of  the  land. 

In  other  directions  his  faculty  was  commonplace. 
When  he  became  a  musical  critic  the  public  was 
amused.  A  friend,  walking  with  him  through  a  picture- 
gallery,  was  surprised  at  the  judgments  he  pronounced. 
But  when  he  voiced  the  right  on  an}r  question  touching 
the  condition  of  the  downtrodden,  the  treatment  of 
women,  or  the  duty  of  purity  and  self-control,  it  was  an 
old  trumpet  of  the  Lord,  or  as  the  roar  of  the  lion  of 
th£  tribe  of  Judah.  that  we  heard.  What  a  true  refrain, 
sublime  tautology,  or  unalterable  parallelism  in  a  He 
brew  psalm,  his  utterance  was!  "'These  chains  must 
be  rent  or  taken  off,  selah  !  "  was  the  burden  and  tune 
of  resonance  from  an  iron  string. 

His  irresistible  demand  was  of  equal  rights  for  all 
of  either  sex.  But  while  such  characters  as  his  are 
needed  and  appear,  equality  of  individual  constitution 
and  influence  cannot  exist,  any  more  than  the  sea  could 
be  emptied  into  a  pond,  or  the  Himalayas  smoothed  to 
the  level  of  Asia,  or  the  lightnings  of  the  sky  reduced 
to  a  spark  on  the  hearth.  He  was  the  hydrostatic  para 
dox  reduced  to  actual  practice  in  civil  and  social  affairs, 
holding  the  ocean  in  check  with  a  drop ;  one  columnar 
man  in  the  other  side  of  the  scale  against  and  resisting 
the  drift  and  subsidence  of  the  race.  He  was  original 


422  PORTRAITS. 

in  this  ethical  weight.  He  did  not  owe  his  preponder 
ance  to  any  other  hero  or  foreseer,  but  proclaimed  an 
authentic  gospel  from  his  own  breast.  Had  he  bor 
rowed,  he  could  not  have  launched  his  bolts  of  fire ! 
The  bow  of  Ulysses  could  be  bent  by  none  of  the  self 
ish  suitors,  and  only  by  Ulysses  himself. 

But  Garrison  was  no  less  a  religious  than  a  moral 
man,  a  Christian  though  not  a  church-goer,  a  regular 
communicant  in  a  sense  as  deep  as  was  ever  carried  by 
any  bread  and  wine.  When  that  honest  and  almost 
unequalled  preacher,  George  Putnam,  who  said  "he 
became  an  abolitionist  when  the  Lord  did,"  remarked 
to  Garrison,  then  his  neighbor,  that  he  did  not  see 
him  at  meeting,  the  reply  was,  "I  go  to  hear  nr^self 
preach  sometimes  !  "  That  grand  duality,  by  reason  of 
which  a  man  is  in  his  own  bosom  speaker  and  audience 
too,  nobody  knew  better  than  he.  To  such  a  listener 
and  overhearer  of  God  in  the  mind's  temple  and  court, 
Jesus  himself  is  not  lord  and  master,  but  friend,  —  the 
title  which,  with  his  first  disciples,  he  craved ;  and  but 
for  such  genuine  inspiration  at  first  hand,  like  a  fresh 
wind  out  of  the  sky,  in  our  own  time,  Christianity 
preached  on  whatever  other  and  outward  authority 
could  not  continue  to  be  received.  On  what  those  who 
would  drill  us  in  forms  and  creeds  construe  as  its  denial 
it  depends  for  its  existence  in  fact!  How  could  we 
believe  in 

"  Siloa's  brook, 
That  flowed  fast  by  the  oracles  of  God," 

but  for  those  other  brooks  ' '  that  make  the  meadows 
green"  in  our  daily  paths?  We  rejoice  in  whoever 
revives  our  faith  that  "  the  Lord  reigneth,"  —  as  Garri- 


GARRISON,   THE   REFORMER.  423 

son,  in  his  perhaps  most  favorite  citation,  ever  fondly  de 
clared,  —  even  as  we  do  that  electricity  is  not  worn  out, 
or  the  northwest  breeze  dead,  or  the  sun's  lamp  spent. 
Astronomers  tell  us  that  the  luminan'  which  makes  for 
us  the  day  will  at  last  have  consumed  its  wick,  and 
burnt  up  from  the  vessels  all  its  oil.  But  we  should  not 
credit  any  consumption  at  the  remotest  period  of  the 
moral  sense ;  and  such  men  as  Garrison,  by  being  its 
organs,  are  mightier  than  their  reputed  intellectual 
superiors,  constraining  the  giants  of  debate,  Webster 
and  Clay  and  Calhoun,  as  well  as  those  of  imperial 
will  like  Jackson,  to  stay  their  hands,  hush  their  ut 
terance,  and  lower  their  eyes.  After  seasons  during 
which  fair  dealing  seems  to  have  disappeared  from  the 
earth,  this  lustre  of  righteousness,  like  a  star  out  of  its 
occultation,  in  such  an  aspect  and  figure  as  that  of 
Garrison  returns. 

He  was  not,  indeed,  the  abolisher  of  slavery  by  him 
self  alone.  The  poor  negro  boy,  to  the  question  in  the 
Catechism,  put  by  his  teacher,  replied,  u  The  Lord  made 
me,  but  Massa  Linkum  make  me  free  !  "  Garrison  gave 
to  Lincoln  the  ample  award  for'his  word  and  deed, 
while  for  the  blessed  consummation,  sharing  his  own 
meed  of  honor  with  the  humblest  instrument,  he  would 
have  all  men,  with  him,  praise  the  Most  High.  Well 
did  the  Church,  which,  however  he  forsook  its  assem 
blies,  folded  him  alive,  also  take  him  dead  to  her  arms, 
saying,  u  I,  through  m/  priesthood,  and  not  you,  my 
son,  have  been  the  prodigal ;  and  my  aisles  shall  ring 
with  your  praises,  although  your  soul  may  not  ask 
my  prayers." 

Garrison  was  not  the  only  agent ;  solitary  he  could 


424  PORTRAITS. 

never  have  prevailed.  There  would  have  been  too  much 
of  his  monotonous  strain  to  be  borne ;  and  his  anti- 
constitutional  doctrine  was  an  error  that  might  have 
gone  to  injurious  excess  but  for  other  influences  as 
essential  as  his  to  one  and  the  same  end.  Those  who 
recoiled  from  the  terrible  phantom  of  disunion  and 
the  bloody  issue  of  civil  war,  from  the  Red  Sea  that 
stretched  out  on  the  way  to  freedom,  have  encountered 
much  reproach  at  the  hands  of  such  as  rushed  ahead. 
All  respect  is  due  to  him  who,  in  the  immense  move 
ment,  was  to  the  fore  and  at  the  van,  having  touched 
bottom  of  the  truth  in  this  thing.  Yet  social  and  na 
tional  sins  are  diseases  too,  to  be  cured  by  expectant 
medicine  or  by  prudent  surgery,  not  lopped  off  at  a 
stroke  of  the  knife.  To  stop  the  iniquity  with  aboli 
tion,  immediate  and  unconditional,  was  a  necessary,  no 
less  than  a  righteous  cry.  But  in  this  world  no  great 
change  can  be  immediate  and  unconditional.  Those 
who  waited,  who  pondered  the  problem  and  sought  the 
wisest  way,  were  servants  as  loyal  and  as  useful  as  any 
who  proceeded  in  haste  to  the  end  desired.  How  many 
a  heart  will  cry  out  even  now,  Would  to  God  that  the 
object  might  have  been  won  at  less  cost  than  "  a  drop 
of  blood  from  the  sword  for  every  drop  of  blood  from 
the  lash "  !  in  our  martyr-President's  phrase.  If  an 
earlier  crisis  had  destroyed  the  nation  for  either  black 
or  white,  or  for  them  both,  the  issue  would  have  been 
made  too  soon.  In  the  backwardness  of  thousands 
of  excellent  men  and  women  was  a  quality  in  the  sight 
of  Him,  who  is  not  in  a  hurry,  as  fine  and  pleasing 
as  in  any  cordial  and  headlong  push  to  deliver  the 
wronged,  if  how  to  redeem  them  effectually  were  in- 


GAKKISON,    THE   KEFORMEK.  425 

deed  what  the  hesitants  proposed.  Dr.  Charming, 
who,  once  in  motion,  was  as  much  resolved  as  were 
those  who  started  earlier  to  go  on,  has  been  reviled 
as  a  temporizer,  a  time-server,  and  a  coward -in  the 
cause.  But  no  curse  can  rest  on  that  pure  and  no 
ble  name !  It  will  be  more  likely  to  return  to  the 
ears  of  those  from  whose  lips  it  comes.  Channing, 
as  has  been  said  by  one  who  was  an  abolitionist  from 
the  outset,  surrendered  for  his  convictions  more  than 
Garrison  ever  had  to  give  up  !  He  was  a  beloved  man 
and  a  famous  minister,  drawing  crowds  when  he  spoke, 
prosperous  in  his  worldly  fortunes,  and  an  idol  in  the 
desk.  When  he  came  out  on  the  antislavery  side  he  was 
avoided,  denounced,  and  looked  at  askance ;  and  some 
of  his  old  friends  would  not  speak  to  him  in  the  street. 
For  a  nature  sensitive,  like  his,  was  not  this  a  price  to 
pay  which  should  save  him  from  the  charge  of  venality 
now? 

Slavery  was  abolished  by  no  man,  but  by  all  men,  — 
b^y  the  Divine  behest  and  by  the  United  States.  The 
cars  of  progress  were  coupled  for  that  design  ;  and  the 
brakemen  at  the  wheels,  as  well  as  the  engineers  of 
the  train,  did  their  part.  Slavery  was  abolished  as  a 
war-measure  and  at  a  stroke  of  the  pen.  But  the  sud 
den  abolition  of  it,  in  time  of  peace  and  without  prep 
aration,  would  have  been  a  shock  perhaps  too  severe 
for  the  social  system  to  bear.  The  philanthropist  who 
looks  at  the  surface,  and  would  overthrow  at  once  any 
external  ill,  would  do  more  harm  than  good,  could  he 
instantaneously  have  his  way.  The  introduction  of  uni 
versal  woman-suffrage  on  the  moment,  like  an  eruption 
through  the  ocean-bed,  would  lift,  on  the  sea  of  human 


426  PORTRAITS. 

affairs,  one  of  those  prodigious  and  engulfing  billows 
which  could  be  weathered  by  no  pilot  of  the  ship 
of  State.  It  will  come,  if  at  all,  slowly,  when  it  is 
wanted  by  women,  and  can  be  adjusted  to  our  civil 
affairs,  as  a  new  continent  of  the  globe  rises  by  the 
gentle  and  normal  pressure  of  the  central  force ;  the 
holy  clamor  for  it,  peradventure,  hastening  the  time  by 
stirring  the  political  deeps. 

Mr.  Garrison  had  in  this  reform  an  interest  second 
only  to  that  which  was  the  chief  mission  of  his  life. 
He  made,  on  one  or  another  branch  of  it,  solemn 
and  moving  speeches  in  England  and  at  home.  The 
grounds  and  conclusions  of  some  by  whom  it  is  op 
posed  are  the  grossest  affront  offered  in  this  age  to 
the  human  conscience  and  to  common-sense.  The 
premises  must  be  wrong  which  lead  to  such  doctrines 
as  are  still  proclaimed.  We  are  told  that  fear  is  a 
shame  to  a  man,  but  not  to  a  woman ;  that  the  virtue 
of  chastity  is  more  important  in  the  woman,  inasmuch 
as  she  guards  the  succession  of  property  and  name, 
than  in  the  man  ;  that  to  impose  the  same  penalties  for 
vice  on  a  man  as  on  a  woman  would  be  without  the 
same  necessit}^  and  a  far  greater  hardship  to  him  than 
to  her ;  that  a  breach  of  chastity  must  not  be  visited 
with  equal  condemnation  on  a  man  as  on  a  woman  ;  that 
different  values  are  to  be  assigned  to  the  same  virtue 
in  men  and  women  ;  and  that  a  man  can  retrieve  lost 
honor,  and  a  woman  cannot.  What  masculine  villain 
could  ask  greater  license  for  his  iniquities  than  all  this  ? 
It  is  carte  blanche  for  transgression  in  entries  of  the 
blackest  dye.  It  is  magna  charta  for  all  the  profligacy 
of  the  stronger  sex  that  has  stained  the  annals  of  the 


GARRISON,    THE   REFORMER.  427 

world.  What  but  a  worldly  polic}T  is  the  frankly  con 
fessed  reason  for  this  double  standard  and  division  of 
virtues  betwixt  the  two  sides  of  humanity,  in  a  distri 
bution  which  not  a  sentence  from  either  volume  of  Holy 
Writ  can  be  quoted  to  justify  ?  A  spotless  womanhood 
in  an  incorruptible  wife  must,  it  is  said,  secure  to 
offspring  their  legitimate  family-title !  Shall  the  man 
be  allowed  to  have  other  children  of  his  blood  with 
other  names  or  with  none?  Is  the  escutcheon  then 
without  a  blot?  Is  a  cleanly  constitution  certified, 
as  a  divine  bill  of  health,  for  the  generation  to  come, 
when  only  one  of  the  parents  is  clean  ?  Does  Christ  or 
apostle  wink  at  fornication  or  adultery  in  either  one  of 
them  more  than  in  the  other  ?  Does  not  the  old  com 
mandment,  equally  with  the  new,  make  honor  and  holi 
ness  alike  binding  on  him  who  begets  as  on  her  who 
bears  ?  The  plea  of  the  wolf  that  the  lamb,  drinking 
on  the  stream  below,  muddied  the  water  above,  is  the 
only  piece  of  literature  with  which  to  characterize  so 
monstrous  a  view,  on  which  all  honest  men  and  women 
should  unite  in  a  common  oath  to  have  no  mercy  to 
palliate  or  forgive.  Purity,  we  are  informed,  is  the 
virtue  for  a  woman,  and  truth  for  a  man.  Sorely,  in 
deed,  he  needs  veracity  in  his  business  ;  but  should  she 
be  less  candid  in  her  representations  and  affairs  ?  She 
must  be  above  suspicion  in  her  sexual  relations  ;  but  is 
it  of  less  consequence  that  grave  mistrust  of  his  goings 
and  comings,  if  his  inclination  be  questionable,  should 
dog  his  steps?  All  the  brethren  and  sisters  that  de 
serve  these  dear  appellations,  old  as  the  world,  will 
unanimously  say,  No !  Man  .and  woman,  made  to 
gether  in  that  image  of  God  which  else  would  be  in 


428  POKTKAITS. 

either  incomplete,  must  be,  like  him,  both  holy  alike. 
Any  opinion  by  which  this  judgment  is  contravened  is 
neither  intuitive  nor  inspired.  It  is  a  verdict  of  expe 
diency,  from  past  cycles  of  error  and  sin.  Its  basis  is 
calculation  of  utility ;  and  even  as.  such  the  sum  will 
be  found  incorrect,  and  never  be  proved  before  God 
and  the  instincts  of  the  human  soul. 

In  every  way  Mr.  Garrison  was  of  the  future,  not  of 
the  past.  He  was  a  millennial  man  ;  and  a  right  rela 
tion  between  man  and  woman  is  a  larger  project,  and 
has  its  accomplishment  farther  away,  than  the  eman 
cipation  eveiy where  of  the  blacks.  We  feel  that  the 
first  step  of  progress  has  not  been  taken  so  long  as  it  is 
denied  that  moral  excellence  of  any  sort  is  not  common 
to,  or  independent  of  sex ;  that  to  be  immaculate  is 
more  important  in  our  wife,  daughter,  or  sister,  than 
in  her  mate,  who  can  recover  with  any  credit  from 
derelictions  which  her  reputation  cannot  survive,  be 
cause  she  stands  guard  over  the  descent  of  his  !  From 
expediency  and  a  title  to  earthly  goods  virtue  itself, 
then,  is  derived.  Purity  is  based  on  property ;  and 
any  other  virtue  on  the  same  utilitarian  principle  is  of 
more  or  less  consequence  according  to  circumstances. 
We  had  supposed  that  virtue  of  every  sort  was  a  dictate 
of  conscience,  an  inspiration  of  God,  and  an  instinct  of 
the  soul;  that  it  was  a  jewel,  and  not  a  bit  of  paste; 
that  it  was  not  itself,  like  Nebuchadnezzar's  image,  a 
composition,  but  a  constitution^  according  to  which  all 
other  things  should  be  created  and  composed.  Behold, 
it  is  naught  but  a  pudding-stone  of  the  mind !  Then 
there  is  no  adamant  in  nature ;  the  grace  of  God  is  a 
mosaic,  and  his  spirit  a  figure  of  speech.  The  elements 


GARRISON,    THE   REFORMER.  429 

are  our  parents,  and  we  have  no  father  beside ;  and 
this  making  all  human  worth  out  of  selfish  calculation 
is  supposed  to  be  a  panoply  of  argument  which  no  criti 
cal  objection  can  pierce.  Who  can  find  a  joint  in  the 
armor?  is  the  question  put;  to  which  we  answer,  It 
gapes,  and  is  open  to  the  spear  at  every  point !  It  was 
said  of  Achilles  that  he  was  vulnerable  only  in  his  heel ; 
and  nothing  but  the  lower  extremities  of  a  man  seem  to 
be  left  when  he  is  exempt  from  any  duty  which  is  im 
posed  on  a  woman,  for  no  reason  but  because  a  base 
custom  which  men  have  instituted  so  bids  !  The  present 
writer  was  once  adjured  by  a  bridegroom  not  to  require 
any  more  in  the  marriage  vows  of  the  bride  than  of  him. 
But  to  make  the  Providence  that  establishes  human 
society  the  author  of  a  requisition  so  unfair  carries  pro 
fanity  to  the  extreme. 

That  male  purity  is  as  momentous,  at  least,  as  female, 
is  hinted  by  the  old  Scripture-proverb  that  it  was  the 
eating  of  sour  grapes  by  the  ' '  fathers  "  that  had  set  the 
children's  teeth  on  edge,  and  by  a  modern  one  concern 
ing  the  equal  fitness  of  the  same  condiment  to  the  mascu 
line  and  feminine  of  a  certain  species  of  domesticated 
fowl,  whose  literal  terms  are  too  coarse  to  cite.  No 
Indian  squaw  or  Otaheitan  savage  would  say  that  aught 
else  is  fair.  Not  to  be  re-born,  but  born  and  begot 
aright,  is  the  sum  of  all  reform.  When  we  have  a  true 
human  generation,  all  the  aid  societies  and  philanthropic 
associations  and  assemblies  for  charity  may  disband  and 
dissolve.  Therefore  let  us  take  a  stronger  than  Father 
Mathew's  pledge  to  stand  by,  and  inaugurate  whatso 
ever  will  promote  that  coming  of  a  true  human  race  into 
the  world,  which  any  license  for  either  party  to  the  mar- 


430  PORTRAITS. 

riage-contract  will  prevent.  It  is  reported  by  travellers 
that  when  Russian  husbands  take  liberties  Russian  wives 
do  the  same  ;  and  a  spreading  libertinism,  which  may,  in 
its  corrupting  sway  among  the  higher  classes,  go  far  to 
account  for  Nihilism,  is  the  mournful  and  menacing  re 
sult.  When  Napoleon  the  Great  was  about  to  lead  his 
arm}"  into  the  field,  he  sometimes  swore  them  to  be  faith 
ful  to  their  country,  to  their  general,  and  to  their  flag ; 
and  to  each  adjuration  they  answered,  "  We  swear,"  with 
a  murmur  that  overspread  the  earth  and  filled  the  sky. 
Let  all  who  would  befriend  the  tie  betwixt  woman  and 
man  join  in  a  like  conjuration  that,  in  the  mutual  engage 
ment,  neither  party  shall  be  false.  Man  and  woman  are 
made  together  in  the  image  of  God.  She  is  half  thereof ; 
and  without  her  womanhood  it  would  be  a  broken  image 
in  all  mankind.  Moreover,  in  this  image  there  is  a  com 
mon  circulation  of  virtue  through  all  its  parts  and  forms. 
No  beauty  of  disposition  or  grace  of  character,  charm 
of  temper  or  courage  of  will,  can  be  confined  to  either 
side.  Whatsoever  is  pure  and  lovely  must  make  in 
human  shape  the  whole  circuit  of  divinity  to  have  its 
true  potency,  as  electricity  must  traverse  the  wires  to 
and  fro  before  a  connection  is  made  and  the  message 


To  estimate  a  virtue  by  its  supposed  politico- economi 
cal  consequences  is  to  make  all  virtue  a  compromise. 
But  are  there  not  some  virtues  that  belong  less  to  a 
woman  and  more  to  a  man,  such  as  courage  and  enter 
prise,  as  we  read  that  a  man  once  "  was  famous  accord 
ing  as  he  had  lifted  up  the  axe  on  the  thick  trees,"  and 
as  he  has  always  fought  in  war?  Is  not  fear  "a 
shame  in  him  and  not  in  woman  "  ?  I  answer,  for  her 


GARRISON,   THE   REFORMER.  431 

to  be  fearless  is  not  to  be  unsexed.  Bravery  in  battle 
or  against  the  elements  is,  however,  a  half-physical 
quality.  There  are  primary  and  secondary  virtues,  as 
there  are  primary  and  secondary  properties  of  matter. 
But  truth,  honest}7,  and  purity  are  to  vigor  and  pluck, 
to  contention  and  resistance,  what  extension  and 
weight  are  to  color  and  form ;  and  the  moral  primaries 
become  and  adorn  either  sex  alike.  To  the  plea  that 
man  has  the  stronger  appetite  to  justify  him,  the  re 
ply  is,  that  he  should  feel  all  the  more  bound  not  to 
throw  the  reins  on  its  neck,  and  needs  to  be  especially 
restrained  and  warned  ;  and  that  moral  obligation  should 
not  be  for  him  a  looser  curb,  nor  apology  a  thicker  pal 
liation  cast  over  his  than  his  companion's  fault.  To  let 
loose  a  wayward  propensity  on  principle  is  worse  and 
more  dangerous  than  a  s}Tstem  of  polygamy,  as  among 
the  Mormons,  or  than  Solomon's  concubinage  in  old 
Jewish  times.  It  would  insulate  the  woman,  deprive  her 
of  any  proper  mate,  and  tempt  her,  as  in  France,  to 
take  in  such  manner  as  she  might  choose  her  revenge. 
But  the  chief  evil  of  a  social  philosophy,  which  gives  the 
least  excuse,  or  opens  to  any  excess  a  crack  of  the  door, 
is  that  it  makes  virtue  an  accident  or  arrangement,  not 
a  law.  There  is  thus  no  commandment  in  life,  but  all 
is  a  game ;  and  the  conduct  of  every  individual  is  at 
the  hazard  of  his  inclination  as  on  the  cast  of  a  die. 
There  would  thus  be  a  taint  at  the  source  of  human 
behavior,  a  rot  in  the  thread  of  every  relation,  and 
many  a  Cain,  whom  no  Bible  could  take  notice  of,  a 
vagrant  and  tramp  on  the  earth. 

The  historic  sense,  so  indispensable  to  a  historian, 
becomes  tyrannical  and  false  when  it  puts  the  eyes  in 


432  PORTRAITS. 

the  back  of  the  head,  and  would  stereotype  the  future 
on  the  pattern  of  the  past.  However  sage  in  this 
world's  wisdom  such  a  posture  may  be,  it  is  not  the 
attitude  of  any  hero,  reformer,  martyr,  or  saint.  It  is, 
indeed,  the  look  and  gesture  which  make  what  we  call 
conservatism.  It  is  the  aspect  of  despairing  and  tim 
orous  men,  who  talk  of  our  institutions  as  a  failure,  a 
broken  promise,  or  a  forlorn  hope.  Bright  prospect  it 
has  none. 

Transcendent  genius  none  will  claim  for  Mr.  Garri 
son,  yet  in  ideas  was  his  strength.  The  missiles  dis 
charged  in  the  field  can  seldom  be  fired  again;  but 
principles  are  a  miraculous  ammunition,  more  mighty 
the  oftener  it  may  be  used.  Like  a  boomerang,  every 
weapon  with  which  we  justly  assail  iniquity  returns  to 
our  hand.  Garrison  was  mistaken  for  a  heated  zealot 
when  he  was  a  tranquil  marksman.  He  was  the  granite 
hill,  against  which  the  raging  elements  broke  to  flow 
down  in  a  fertilizing  stream.  He  was  the  storm-centre 
rather  than  the  storm.  He  was  the  Spartan  bearing  his 
message,  though  he  fell  dead  at  the  goal.  He  belonged 
,as  to  a  Roman  or  Macedonian  phalanx,  which  pierced 
the  hostile  arra}^  like  an  arrow  or  wedge.  So  few  were 
these  soldiers  of  humanity  at  first  that  they  had,  when 
attacked,  to  form  in  hollow  square  to  bear  the  brunt, 
being  so  vastly  outnumbered  by  their  foes  ;  and  Garri 
son  was  as  cool  as  a  cannoneer  serving  his  hot  and 
smoky  gun.  Rather,  he  was  an  element  of  hostility  to 
wrong,  and  no  more  than  an  element  of  nature  to  be 
blamed.  As  well  attempt  to  dela}r  an  earthquake,  and 
put  off  the  deluge,  as  postpone  his"  onset  and  charge ! 
The  rods  with  which  the  proslavery  folk  sought  to 


GARRISON,    THE   REFORMER.  433 

protect  their  dwelling  were  melted  by  the  lightning 
which  they  would  avert.  God  took  the  controversy 
up  into  the  whirlwind,  as  he  did  the  old  quarrel  with 
Job !  The  human  issue  was  a  resultant  of  forces,  and 
not  the  contribution  of  any  one  man.  We  are  at  the 
old  Pharisee-business  of  sepulchre-building  now,  con 
cealing  our  shame  that  we  treated  the  live  prophets  so 
ill. 

Garrison  was  a  believer  in  both  the  end  and  the 
means.  Explaining  to  a  young  man  the  use  of  the 
printing-press,  as  he  handled  the  lever,  he  said,  "This 
is  the  mightiest  of  things,  and  with  it  we  hope  to  abol 
ish  slavery  in  the  land."  He  exposed  the  trespasser, 
and  never  hushed  the  truth.  He  put  his  light  on  a 
table,  and  not  under  a  bushel.  Shall  I  say  he  was  a 
"  starter  "  of  the  car  of  rectitude  ?  Amid  what  a  crowd 
ing  and  confusion  his  keen  whistle  was  always  heard ! 
He  was  a  lonely  and  a  primary  man.  If  he  calculated 
the  value  of  the  Union,  he  never  did  that  of  the  lib 
erty  it  was  formed  to  defend.  Only  one  of  a  million 
names  is  engraved  on  the  tablet  of  fame  too  deep  to  be 
effaced ;  and  his  is  the  millionth  name !  No  political 
ultimatum  is  so  final  as  that  call  for  freedom  which  in 
'a  new  exodus  is  more  complete  to-day.  "I  never 
knew,"  said  one,  "what  was  meant  by  Christ's  wash 
ing  of  his  disciples'  feet  till  the  fugitive  African  came 
for  me  to  wash  his ! "  One  genuine  spring  of  human 
love  bears  refreshment  far  and  wide,  as  a  runnel  of 
living  water  supplies  a  town ;  and  Garrison  was  a  foun 
tain.  His  advance  resembled  a  marching  with  ban 
ners.  As  a  paper  that  flutters  and  rustles  in  the  street 
startles  a  timid  horse,  so  the  "Liberator"  alarmed 

28 


434  PORTRAITS. 

every  traveller  on  the  highways.  A  rope  was  around 
his  neck  in  Boston.  Where  is  it  now?  What  a  relic  it 
would  be,  like  the  holy  coat  of  Treves,  or  the  bones  of 
martyrs,  or  a  piece  of  the  true  cross  !  By  the  descend 
ants  of  the  very  men  that  plied  and  cast  it  about  his 
neck  like  a  lasso  for  a  wild  beast,  it  would  be  converted 
now  for  an  ornament  and  a  charm.  He  wrote  on  his 
dungeon  wall  the  reason  of  his  incarceration.  On  earth 
and  in  heaven  he  has  come  out  into  the  light. 

Mr.  Garrison  was  a  born  independent,  an  incarnate 
resolution,  a  man  that  could  go  by  himself  and  stand 
alone  ;  and  he  was  compressed  into  resisting  and  resist 
less  power  by  the  right  of  his  cause  and  the  exigency  of 
the  case.  He  did  not  court  any  backing,  and  was  indif 
ferent  to  applause.  He  stood  apart  from  his  peers  in 
his  belief  in  spiritualism  and  its  so-called  manifesta 
tions  ;  and  when  I  told  him  that  Paul,  who  never  saw 
the  Lord  save  in  spiritual  vision,  was  the  chief  apostle, 
and  that  Thomas,  who  wanted  to  put  his  fingers  into 
the  print  of  the  nails,  and  thrust  his  hand  into  the  Mas 
ter's  side,  was  never  heard  of  again,  he  astonished  me 
by  replying  that  Thomas  was  worth  all  the  rest  of  the 
disciples  put  together  !  When  an  invitation  was  sent  to 
him  to  assist  in  raising  the  flag  at  Fort  Sumter  after 
the  war,  he  received  it  with  not  a  sign  of  exultation  but 
an  impassive  face.  He  was  as  unmoved  by  the  compli 
ment  or  the  glory  as  a  frigate  by  a  shining  ripple  on  her 
sides.  The  exigency  had  been  so  great  and  grave  that 
he  had  lost  in  it  himself. 


HUNT,   THE  AKTIST.  435 


VI. 
HUNT,   THE  ARTIST. 

ART  among  us  is  still  a  sort  of  wanderer  or  lost 
child.  But  there  seems  to  be  occasionally  born 
in  this  land  of  the  Puritans  one  who  is  not  puritanic, 
but. rather  like  the  offspring  of  parents  whom  some  mis 
chance  has  exiled  from  their  own  native  climate  and 
soil,  yet  who  comes  to  remind  us  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  beauty  alike  in  that  nature  and  art  which  have 
both  in  New  England  lain  so  long  under  a  religious 
curse,  and  whose  spirit  the  theory  and  practice  of  our 
modern  materialism  would  again,  like  the  old  theology, 
suppress  or  kill,  by  making  nature  the  cause  in  all  crea 
tion  instead  of  the  ever-proceeding  effect. 

The  artist  is  a  silent  preacher  to  whom  those  mate 
rial  elements  which  the  scientist  explores  for  their  own 
sake,  and  for  the  laws  they  illustrate,  have  but  the 
intrinsic  worth  of  what  they  express  by  proportion  and 
color  of  the  charm  and  meaning  of  this  world,  being  but 
one  of  the  bullets  shot  from  the  muzzle  of  the  sun,  to 
undergo  during  the  geologic  ages  such  a  subduing  pro 
cess  that  one  might  say  its  Author  is  an  artist,  with 
Nature  in  his  immense  studio  for  a  pupil  and  help.  For 
how  the  gigantic  primeval  fauna  and  flora  have  been 
refined !  There  could  have  been  no  rose  or  lily,  more 
than  a  Socrates  or  a  Jesus,  at  the  start.  But  among 


436  PORTRAITS. 

the  atoms  a  God  is  at  work,  because  nature  is  a  handi 
work  of  Deity  ;  and  nature  and  art  are  thus  convertible 
terms.  Science  falsely  assumes  in  nature  a  deptU,  sci 
entifically  reached,  below  what  any  art  can  sound.  The 
senses  and  the  understanding,  the  faculties  which  Sci 
ence  employs,  deal  only  with  the  outside  of  things. 
Meantime,  she  rehearses  in  secret  with  her  Author  all 
the  parts  she  is  to  perform.  She  is  for  ever  veiled.  No 
mortal  has  lifted  her  curtain,  or  been  admitted  to  the 
little  green-room  where  for  the  open  stage  she  lays  her 
plots.  Thus,  while  the  scientist  may  regard  the  artist 
as  but  the  decorator  of  her  scenery,  maker  of  her  cos 
tume,  and  provider  of  the  theatrical  properties,  the 
artist  holds  that  the  beauty  which  plays  over  her  sur 
face  is  but  an  outlet  of  the  essence  at  her  core.  Her 
charms  are  not  like  trinkets  or  bracelets,  worn  on  the 
arms  and  neck,  but  expressions  through  the  counte 
nance  of  uncontainable  goodness  and  immortal  grace ; 
and  her  interpreter  is  not  the  ornamenter  but  the  repre 
sentative  of  her  designs.  He  brings  us  into  close  com 
munion,  nearer  to  her  than  does  any  statement  of,  her 
facts  and  laws,  in  which  she  is  but  like  a  tree  in  winter 
stripped  of  verdure,  or  a  skeleton  without  the  mobile, 
ruddy,  and  breathing  flesh.  Her  volume  is  a  picture- 
book,  whose  text  would  be  dr}^  and  in  a  foreign  tongue 
without  the  illustrations.  While  there  are  in  the  world 
no  livelier  quarrels  than  among  the  scientific  and  philo 
sophic  schools,  and  such  a  materialist  as  Haeckel  flings 
vile  epithets  at  Agassiz  and  Virchow,  to  prove  that 
he  at  least  has  not  reached  the  truth,  which  is  a  spirit 
of  justice  and  love,  let  us  therefore  be  thankful  for  a 
refuge  from  the  strife  of  tongues  in  that  pavilion  of 
beauty,  so  many  of  whose  chambers  art  unlocks. 


HUNT,   THE  AETIST.  437 

Let  me  not  disparage  the  benefit  of  Science.  She 
takes  us  forward  as  in  a  foot-journej'.  Then  we  get 
into  the  chariot  of  Art,  to  be  carried  on  our  endless 
way,  which  has  so  many  stations  and  no  goal.  I  love 
the  philosophers,  and  but  smile  to  see  how  none  of  their 
explanations  suffice  !  I  love  their  disciples  of  all  schools, 
and  marvel  only  at  those  who  are  led  captive  by  any 
one  man!  "Great  is  Allah,  and  Mohammed  is  his 
prophet,"  exclaims  the  Turkish  devotee  in  the  Orient. 
"  Great  is  Nature,  and  Spencer  and  Darwin  are  her 
prophets,"  is  the  outcry  of  their  votaries  in  the  trans 
atlantic  West.  Greater  still  are  Plato,  and  Aristotle, 
and  Hegel,  and  Immanuel  Kant,  with  his  morals  above 
expediency,  and  a  conscience  beyond  those  utilitarian 
calculations  which  are  like  a  merchant's  ledger  of  profit 
and  loss.  But  the  singers,  Shakspeare  and  Homer, 
with  the  painters,  Velasquez  and  Rembrandt,  have  a 
stature  of  equal  height.  Says  that  candid  master,  Dar 
win,  "There  is  a  natural  selection  by  which  the  fittest 
survive."  So,  then,  there  is  a  will  in  Nature,  beside  the 
mighty  original  push.  She  seems  to  have  an  alterna 
tive  and  a  choice.  Beside  the  gradual  incline  of  her 
procedure  up  or  down,  there  are  nodes  and  crises  in 
her  movement,  little  leaps  and  starts,  as  when  the 
mushroom  breaks  through  the  crust  of  the  ground,  or 
the  bourgeon  of  a  plant  splits  its  horny  bark  with  pres 
sure  soft  as  a  baby's  skin,  teaching  us  how  beyond  all 
hammering  a  constant  gentleness  will  succeed. 

The  artist's  business  is  to  copy  Nature,  and  to  "bet 
ter  her  instruction"  in  choosing  from  her  what  he  likes, 
as  it  is  said  Turner  selected  what  pleased  him,  and  left 
the  rest,  being  not  a  Chinese  imitator,  but  a  bard  with 


438  PORTRAITS. 

the  brush,  dipping  it  in  his  palette  instead  of  a  pen  in 
ink.  He  was  the  English  Shakspeare  ;  and  the  canvas 
was  his  book,  the  "  Slave-Ship"  his  tragedy  of  u  Mac 
beth,"  and  the  "Building  of  Carthage"  his  "Midsum 
mer  Night's  Dream." 

Some  men  and  women  have  their  brains  packed  so 
full  of  facts  or  data  and  laws  that  there  is  little  room 
left  for  music  or  picture  or  prayer.  But  understanding 
does  not,  so  well  as  imagination,  even  understand  the 
world.  Our  American  poet  can  make  an  image  of  the 
"chambered  nautilus,"  but  what  investigator  can  de 
tect  the  primordial  germ  behind  the'-  first  curl  of  its 
shell?  Truth  to  the  intellect  is  but  the  shadow  of 
beauty,  and  beauty  is  the  face  of  truth.  There  are 
many  facts  that  will  not  fit  the  system-maker's  theory 
of  the  world  as  developed  or  evolved.  But  the  values 
of  form  and  color  are  essentially  unalterable.  The 
line  of  beauty  is  one,  and  it  suits  the  soul.  There 
fore  it  is  written  that  "  out  of  Zion,  the  perfection  of 
beaut}7,  God  hath*  shined." 

William  Morris  Hunt,  like  Horatio  Greenough,  was 
a  born  artist ;  and,  when  a  boy,  began  to  make  pic 
tures  on  the  margins  of  the  leaves  of  books,  and  to 
model  figures,  as  Greenough  did,  in  whatever  fit  mate 
rial  came  to  hand,  —  the  promise  of  the  sculptor  in  him 
being  at  first  most  marked.  Whence  and  wherefore  in 
any  one  is  such  irrepressible  disposition  to  reproduce, 
but  as  part  of  the  image  and  inclining  of  Him  who  does 
not  analyze  and  dissect,  but  for  ever  puts  things  to 
gether,  and  himself  moulds  and  paints  the  world? 
Surely  he  has  no  finer  work  than  in  the  artist  he  fash 
ions  and  sends  ;  and  seldom  is  seen  a  rarer  pattern  of 


HUNT,   THE  ARTIST.  439 

flesh  than  the  one  of  whom  I  speak.  Such  and  so 
faultless  were  his  form,  face,  eye,  poise,  gesture,  and 
shape  of  the  hand,  which  was  the  unconscious  attend 
ant  of  a  melodious  and  eloquent  voice,  that  in  any  com 
pany  he  would  be  at  once  singled  out  by  an  observer. 
There  is  a  fine  portrait  of  him  as  a  young  man  with 
brown  hair  and  tawny  beard,  which,  in  later  years  long, 
waving,  and  soft  as  silk,  made  part  of  the  picture  he 
was  as  he  walked  the  street.  His  disposition  was  so 
genial  and  benign,  as  well  as  communicative  of  original 
imaginations  and  thoughts,  that  there  was  no  more  popu 
lar  member  in  the  class  in  his  college-days.  A  singular 
delicacy  informed  his  nervous  system  and  whole  frame, 
which  had  much  of  the  woman  in  it,  as  has  been  the 
case  with  many  eminent  men.  Quick  to  see  and  to  stir, 
curious  to  gaze  at  and  spell  out  this  panorama  of  things 
and  persons  which  the  never-resting  creation  is,  he 
could  scarce  have  been  made  a  philologist,  a  metaphy 
sician,  or  a  student  of  antiquarian  lore.  Wonderful  in 
his  descriptions  of  what  he  observed,  and  instructive 
in  conversation,  he  had  sailed,  and  was  alwa}^s  sailing, 
round  the  world  in  a  different  way  from  Captain  Cook, 
and  got  all  his  rich  learning  not  from  literature  but 
from  life.  He  was  not  only  a  poet  on  canvas,  as  he 
might  have  been  on  the  page,  but  a  Clnysostom,  or 
talker  with  the  golden  mouth.  The  fine  and  sensitive 
thread  with  which  his  mortal  garment  was  sewed  to 
gether,  while  it  qualified  him  for  his  calling,  was  also, 
as  it  must  be  in  any  man,  his  exposure  to  pain.  Dis 
cord  is  greatest  and  most  extreme  on  the  strings  or  in 
the  pipes  of  the  musical  instrument  that  is  most  com 
plex  and  perfect,  and  it  is  only  "sweet  bells"  that  can 


440  PORTRAITS. 

be  "jangled  out  of  tune."  If  he  suffered  on  account 
of  a  constitution  exceptionally  tender  to  respond  to  a 
breath  and  quiver  at  a  touch,  he  but  shared  the  lot  of 
all  with  like  organism,  as  George  Sand  says  the  com 
poser  Chopin  was  wounded  by  a  fold  in  a  rose-leaf  and 
would  tremble  at  a  shadow  that  passed. 

It  is  a  question  always  how  to  fix  any  one  artist's 
place  among  others  of  his  own  country  or  time.  The 
general  verdict  is  likely  to  be  that,  while  Allston  and 
Stuart  and  Copley  may  have  excelled  Hunt  as  colorists 
and  painters  of  single  figures,  as  Allston  soared  above 
all  his  fellows  in  this  land  into  the  heaven  of  inven 
tion,  religious  sentiment,  and  a  divine  calm,  so  that  his 
pictures  show  at  once  what  the  man  loved  and  where 
he  delighted  to  abide,  yet  that  Hunt  has  greater  variety, 
.and  measures  a  wider  breadth  of  both  nature  and  hu 
manity  in  his  style.  Certainly  he  belongs  to  the  school 
which  is  both  modern  and  French ;  and  he  was  succes 
sively  in  one  and  another  part  of  the  school-room,  first 
with  the  more  classic  and  ideal  Couture,  afterwards 
with  Millet,  at  once  so  romantic  and  humane. 

They  are  gone.  How  the  painters  of -late  have  died  ; 
and  France  in  her  Millet,  Corot,  and  Couture  has  lost 
more  precious  possessions  than  in  her  beloved  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  !  Hunt,  too,  has  departed  to  the  majority,  and 
rejoined  his  peers,  leaving  his  earthly  comrades  and  schol 
ars  to. mourn.  What  is  his  place  in  the  earthly  ranks? 
If  a  man  by  an  unerring  law  goes  into,  and  .may  be  dis 
covered  by  his  work,  be  it  with  the  chisel  or  brush  or  pen, 
how  well  we  must  think  of  Hunt !  Not  a  coarse  con 
ception  or  indecent  stroke  does  aught  that  ever  stood 
on  his  easel  present ;  and  if  any  inquire  what  manner 


HUNT,   THE   AETIST.  441 

of  person'  this  was,  all  that  he  produced,  without  a  con 
tradictory  vote,  answers  that  goodness  and  purity,  mod 
est}7  and  humilit}*,  truth  and  sincerity,  dwelt  in  his  soul. 
Did  he  not  indeed  husband  his  powers,  economize  his 
opportunities,  guard  with  temperance  his  strength,  and 
improve  his  time?  Were  there  any,  the  faintest,  testi 
mony  to  the  contrary,  it  would  be  from  a  false  witness  ; 
for  what  he  has  done,  so  great,  various,  and  manifold 
in  quantity  and  quality  too,  comes  in  proof,  which  no 
trivial  evidence  could  rebut,  what  a  hard-working  and 
devoted  man  he  was,  getting  out  of  himself  for  his 
fellow-creatures'  behoof  all  the  music  in  him  that  his 
Creator  designed.  If  he  stopped  by  the  wayside,  it 
was  but  for  a  moment's  play ;  if  he  plucked  a  flower, 
it  was  while  he  was  tilling  the  ground ;  if  he  slept, 
it  was  beside  that  "  poppy  which  grows  among  the 
corn."  His  drummer-boy  drummed  him  to  his  task; 
his  stone-cutter,  lifting  his  hand  to  his  brow  to  wipe 
away  the  sweat,  was  the  painter  himself  at  sorer  toil 
than  with  any -iron  pick.  Doubtless  the  "  Boy  with  the 
Violin"  was  in  literal  verit}^  the  master  in  art  also,  in  his 
leisure  hours;  and  the  "  Hurdy-Gurdy "  was  not  only 
from,  but  had  been  in,  his  hand !  Had  he  not  laughed 
and  sported  sometimes,  he  could  not  have  labored  as 
he  did,  and  been  the  most  prolific  of  all  in  his  vocation 
who  have  lived  in  our  midst.  So,  in  the  solemn  phrase 
of  our  funeral  service,  let  "  his  works  follow  him,"  and 
he  will  have  a  noble  fame  on  earth  and  the  joy  of  his 
Lord  in  heaven. 

In  my  incompetence  of  judgment  I  must  leave  his 
professional  merit  to  the  verdict  of  experts,  although  I 
have  often  noticed  how  much  unfairness  and  animosity 


442  PORTRAITS. 

in  his  decisions  an  art-critic  for  the  press  may  display. 
u  William,"  said  one  who  knew  him  best,  "  had  a  deli 
cacy  of  sentiment  which  even  among  women  is  found  in 
but  one  of  a  thousand ; "  and  how  his  refinement  ap 
pears  in  his  sketches,  in  color  or  charcoal,  of  the  New 
England  meadows,  or  of  the  Florida  woods  and  creeks  ! 
Pond  and  pasture.,  river  and  harbor,  sea  and  shore,  — 
against  which  the  Atlantic  crowds  in  storm  or  laps 
softly  in  calm,  —  what  better  than  Egyptian  embalming 
they  all  get  from  his  hand !  How  lively  and  fresh,  as 
he  touches  it,  is  every  scene!  Said  John  Weiss,  "I 
did  not  see  the  picture  in  nature,  as  we  walked  together, 
till  it  was  shown  by  him."  From  the  port  of  Glouces 
ter  to  the  Falls  of  Niagara  his  pencil  goes  with  the 
same  power  and  ease.  What  boy  that  ever  drove 
home  the  cows  over  the  hill  but  will  thrill  with  a  mem 
ory,  perhaps  fifty  years  old,  in  looking  at  a  certain  one 
of  his  pastels !  Landscape,  portrait,  and  allegory,  he 
is  at  home  for  them  all.  If  before  some  girlish  like 
ness,  or  scene  on  the  Charles  River,  from  his  pencil, 
we  are  tempted  to  say  he  is  distinguished  by  a  hand 
ling  delicate  and  nice,  let  us  look  at  the  rush  of  the 
water  in  the  rapids  above  Goat  Island,  or  at  the  incar 
nation  of  law  in  Chief  Justice  Shaw  ! 

Mr.  Hunt  caught  by  instant  sympathy  the  manner 
of  his  own  first  or  last  teacher.  How  large  and  ready 
was  his  appropriation  and  assimilation  of  evenr  qualit}T, 
no  grandeur  or  subtile  trick  of  the  business  being  hid 
from  his  infallible  glance  !  But  he  worked  through  all 
masters  to  himself,  and  exhibited  at  the  close  an  indi 
viduality  as  pronounced  as  theirs,  to  become  a  master 
himself.  Never  were  the  pupils  of  any  other  man  a 


HUNT,   THE  AETIST.  443 

more  docile  and  enthusiastic  band.  He  enkindled  them, 
while  he  taught,  as  Agassiz  did  his  scientific  class. 
He  reserved  his  own  supreme  admiration  for  Michael 
Angelo  ;  and  well  I  remember,  at  my  table,  when  Mr. 
Coquerel,  of  Paris,  made  some  critical  exception,  which 
was  not  to  Mr.  Hunt's  taste,  how  he  trembled  and  grew 
white  in  his  seat  with  artistic  wrath,  as  he  declared 
respecting  Angelo's  figure  of  Eve,  that  he  "  never 
could  understand  how  that  man  could  have  created 
the  woman  from  whom  he  had  himself  descended  ! " 
Aspiration  and  ascension,  as  well  as  keen  inspection, 
were  habitually  Mr.  Hunt's  mental  state.  He  said,  "  I 
am  going  to  treat  that  subject  better  than  it  was  ever 
handled  before,  —  I  know  I  shall  not,  but  I  believe  I 
shall."  So  Rubinstein  said,  "  I.  tell  my  pupils,  if  they 
do  not  expect  to  excel  Beethoven  they  must  not  compose 
at  all."  "  In  every  trial  the  painter  makes,"  said  Mr. 
Hunt,  "  there  comes  a  moment  of  despair  ;  "  and  "  the 
artist's  affair  is  to  get  out  of  the  worst  scrapes  on  his 
canvas  a  man  ever  got  into."  He  affirmed  that  his  en 
deavor  was  to  set  forth  "  what  no  man  ever  saw,  —  the 
soul."  He  loved  what  was  alive  and  beaming  more 
than  he  did  any  decay,  however  picturesque.  Hear 
ing  Titiens  sing,  he  said,  "The  rest  of  us  are  raisins, 
but  she  is  a  grape."  His  favor  was  impartial  for  all 
that  is  fair.  When  one  was  reported  as  liking  a  willow, 
but  not  an  oak-tree,  he  replied,  "One  that  professes  to 
like  an  oak  and  not  a  willow  does  not  like  the  oak,  but 
is  only  bullied  by  it."  He  was  such  a  discerner  and 
active  explorer  of  nature  that,  if  he  were  found  with  a 
book  reading  by  the  fire,  it  was  known  something  was 
the  matter  with  him,  and  that  he  must  feel  unwell ;  and 


444  POKTKAITS. 

during  actual  illness,  his  journey  being  postponed,  he 
showed  still  the  matchless  cunning  of  his  fingers  as  he 
wrote  on  a  bit  of  paper  characters  so  minute  that  only 
with  a  microscope  could  they  be  read. 

Charlotte  Cushman  said  of  players,  and  painters  too, 
that  "the  moral  point  is  not  what  takes  their  eye." 
But  he  had  a  strong  sense  of  what  is  just  in  behavior 
as  well  as  in  art,  and  said  he  would  not  send  his  pic 
tures  to  a  particular  exhibition  which  was  ungenerously 
managed  ;  he  "  would  rather  let  the  flies  sit  upon  them  !  " 
When  a  lady  informed  him  one  morning,  ' '  I  shall  not 
keep  my  appointment  to  sit,  I  am  too  yellow  to-day," 
he  observed,  "The  question  is  not  whether  she  is  yel 
low,  but  whether  I  am  !  "  He  meant  it  should  be  con 
sidered  by  the  sitter  whether  the  artist  might  be  in  the 
mood  to  paint ;  and  he  thought  that  egoism  in  the 
lady  had  prevailed  rather  than  equity,  or  altruism,  as  it 
would  be  called  in  the  philosophy  of  our  time.  He 
satirized  all  straining  for  effect  by  saying,  ' '  A  man  can 
not  be  smarter  than  he  is  !  " 

No  shrinking  maiden  had,  more  than  Mr.  Hunt,  that 
sensibility  which  is  crossed  by  deformity,  as  it  is  pleased 
with  all  that  is  harmonious,  while  yet  no  man  was  ever 
braver  to  bear  the  anguish  he  incurred  by  any  jar  or 
dissonance,  in  the  silence  of  his  own  breast.  He  never 
complained  of  disappointment  or  of  unkindly  treat 
ment,  in  his  vocation  or  otherwise,  to  the  outside  world. 
Scarcely  a  lisp  concerning  his  share  in  the  common 
troubles  of  mortal  life  reached  the  ears  even  of  his 
intimate  friends.  He  behaved  like  the  Spartan  youth 
who  concealed  under  his  cloak  the  fox  that  tore  at  his 
breast.  With  the  humor  that  is  proper  to  all  genius  he 


HUNT,    THE   ARTIST.  445 

would  set  out  actions  and  characters  with  the  liveliest 
hues,  in  his  speech  as  with  his  brush,  using  perhaps 
extravagant  expletives,  or,  when  sorely  tempted,  as  in 
nocently  as  Sterne's  Uncle  Toby,  a  round  oath  ;  but  of 
malignity,  or  desire  to  give  pain  to  another,  his  gentle 
bosom  held  not  a  jot.  He  would  give  by  turns  a  piece 
of  his  heart  or  mind,  but  there  was  no  poison  in  his 
disposition. 

The  talk  about  the  artistic  temperament  may  refer 
to  what  is  aside  from  physiological  truth.  Artists  are 
of  all  sorts,  sanguine,  bilious,  and  nervous.  Some  have 
the  French  and  Italian  mobility,  and  others  the  Dutch 
phlegm.  Genius  includes  the  reserved  Englishman  and 
the  stalwart  Norwegian  in  its  class.  Yet  something 
peculiarly  tender  and  impressionable  must  be  in  the 
imagination  of  all  artists  alike.  They  are  children,  not 
adults.  They  live  in  the  present.  They  have  no  past 
tense.  Like  a  photographic  plate,  they  catch  an  object. 
Like  a  turtle  from  the  brook,  or  a  gay  summer  insect, 
they  love  and  take  to  the  sun,  and  bask  or  move  in  it  as 
their  element  with  more  than  the  pleasure  of  common 
men.  Their  intellectual  instruments  have,  if  not  a 
frailer  construction,  yet  a  more  polished  edge,  like  the 
tools  that  must  be  wiped  from  moisture  of  a  breath 
before  they  are  laid  away,  or  the  lenses  that  have  to 
be  adjusted,  and  the  metres  we  hang  carefully  up. 
In  consideration  of  their  precious  benefactions  they 
should  have  some  liberal  indulgence  of  their  tastes 
and  allowance  of  their  atmosphere ;  even  if,  as  one 
hints,  to  prevent  interruption  by  such  as  do  not  under 
stand,  they  write  "Whim"  over  their  door.  There  is 
domestic  and  social  evidence  that  even  such  colossal 


446  PORTRAITS. 

men  as  Milton,  Dante,  and  Goethe  possessed  their 
characteristic  faculty  on  condition  of  an  extraordinary 
susceptibility,  which  was  not  always  under  their  own 
control,  "  so  that  getting  along  with  them  may  have 
sometimes  been  no  easy  task.  The  side  of  the  gifted 
mortal  which  worshippers  see  in  his  splendid  displays 
and  lucid  intervals  of  power,  he  may  not  keep  upper 
most  always  in  debate  or  habitually  at  home.  The 
wife  of  a  famous  preacher  of  a  former  generation  is 
said  to  have  remarked  somewhat  bitterly  on  the  dif 
ference  of  her  husband  to  his  admiring  congregation 
and  privately  to  herself  !  It  is  a  law  of  nature  that 
the  highest  tide  should  be  followed  by  the  lowest ;  and 
there  is  a  refluence  unavoidable  in  whatever  mind  in 
its  occasional  efforts  may  transcend  the  ordinary  mortal 
capacity  or  lot,  although  there  cannot  for  genius  be  any 
abrogation  of  the  moral  law.  But,  as  we  glory  in  its 
rising,  let  us  be  patient  if  the  flats  appear  when  it  sub 
sides  !  The  rare  variet}^  it  constitutes  of  our  common 
humanity  should  be  entreated  gently.  Let  us  handle  it, 
to  change  the  figure,  like  a  quadrant  or  a  mirror,  and 
not  toss  it  into  a  corner  like  a  rusty  shovel  or  hoe  ! 

But  few  of  the  inspired  ones  less  need  any  apology 
than  Mr.  Hunt.  The  present  witness  knows  too  well 
how  generously  lavish  of  his  attention  and  time  he  was, 
even  for  those  who  had  little  claim  ;  how  he  would  run 
with  his  smiling  face  and  mellow  voice  to  one  that  stood 
and  knocked  at  his  studio-door ;  with  what  long-suffer 
ing  he  bore  intrusion  on  his  work,  and  in  what  a  heaping 
measure  or  an  outpouring  flood  he  gave  counsel  to  those 
in  need.  Yet  he  did  not,  more  than  others,  relish  being 
bluntly  controverted.  To  oppose  him  was  like  thwart- 


HUNT,   THE   ARTIST;  447 

ing  a  child.  He  was  a  fountain,  and  it  was  best  to  let 
him  flow !  Else  he  would  be  choked  or  confused,  and 
one  would  incontinently  miss  the  riches  on  the  stream 
of  a  monologue  like  that  of  Coleridge,  on  themes  as 
suredly  not  the  same. 

Genius  is  a  name  for  transcendent  ability  constitution 
ally  or  providentially  determined  to  a  particular  line ; 
and  it  was  plain  that  Mr.  Hunt  might  have  been  a  mu 
sician,  or  an  actor,  or  in  any  profession  an  eloquent 
speaker,  had  such  direction  been  laid  out  for  him  by  cir 
cumstances.  He  was  a  poet,  with  pigments  for  his  vocab 
ulary  of  words.  He  could  tell  a  story  equally  well  with 
the  crayon  or  the  tongue.  He  could  admirably  drama 
tize,  either  as  a  vivid  narrator  or  as  a  portray er  in 
dumb  figures  of  the  living  scene  for  which  he  cared. 
His  "  Prodigal  Son,"  though  not  literally  faithful  to  the 
.particulars  of  the  Scripture  tale,  affects  us  as  that  does. 
His  "Jewess"  is  as  good  as  Scott's  Rebecca,  or  as 
that  earlier  one  that  stood  by  the  well.  He  was  at 
heart  a  Provengal  singer,  a  wandering  -minstrel  or  trou 
badour,  or  he  could  not  have  drawn  the  shapes  that 
hint  them  so  to  the  life.  He  had  in  him  something  of 
Don  Quixote  or  Miss  Bronte's  Paul  Emanuel.  But  the 
spirit  of  rest,  no  less  than  of  roving,  was  his ;  other 
wise  he  could  not  have  brought  back,  in  such  peace 
from  his  journeys,  "The  Mill-Pond  at  North  Easton," 
or  the  slow  current  and  slender  bayous  of  the  river 
St.  Johns ;  and  he  must  have  known  every  outward  or 
inward  meaning  of  a  cloud  who  drew  the  brooding  of 
the  tempest  on  Cape  Ann. 

The  last  was  the  most  fruitful  and  in  part  one  of  the 
happiest  years  of  Mr.  Hunt's  art-life.  Apparently  in 


448  PORTRAITS. 

perfect  health,  and  with  great  joy,  Niagara  had  from 
him,  in  several  large  pictures,  justice  such  as  the  cataract 
never  received  before  !  Then  came  the  most  important 
of  all  his  commissions,  which  but  for  the  persuasions 
of  one  very  near  to  him  he  would  have  declined.  It 
was  to  decorate  with  allegorical  situations  the  Albany 
State  House  walls.  Once  resolved,  however,  he  entered 
on  an  enterprise  so  serious  with  peculiar  zeal.  That  he 
proved  his  adequacy  for  a  sort  of  undertaking  to  which 
he  was  so  unaccustomed  is  a  signal  demonstration  how 
superior  he  was  alike  in  execution  and  in  inventive  design. 
If  others  in  his  line  among  us  have  been  as  eminent  as 
he  in  portraiture  or  in  sketches  from  nature,  or  have 
evinced  more  conspicuously  any  special  excellence  as 
distinguished  from  his,  no  American  artist  can  vie  with 
him  in  *mural  adornment  on  so  large  a  scale,  while 
his  performance  in  every  wa}r  entitled  him  to  scout,  as 
he  often  did,  the  notion  that  the  age  of  painting  has 
gone,  and  that  art  for  the  future  in  any  of  its  branches 
is  to  be  contemplated  as  in  a  gradual  deca}7.  He  was 
lo}'al  to  the  ancients  ;  but  he  held  stoutly  that  the  mod 
erns  had  appointments  and  topics  of  equal  moment  of 
their  own,  and  were  not  to  be  arrested  or  put  out  of 
countenance  by  the  oldest  and  grandest  works. 

Yet  how  he  honored  the  elders,  and  sat  at  their  feet, 
and  believed  in  their  spiritual  descent  and  ascent,  and 
traced  their  intellectual  kith  and  kin  !  Titian  in  heaven, 
he  thought,  might  say  to  Allston,  "  You  had  something 
of  what  I  had  ;  "  and  Allston  would  answer,  ' '  But  you 
had  so  much,  basketsful  and  basketsful ;  "  and  Titian 
would  reply,  ' '  Yet  you  did  so  much  with  what  you 
had ! "  Hunt's  own  best  touch  is  not  always  on  his 


THE   ARTIST.  449 

canvas  of  largest  size.  He  knew  that  great  work,  in 
order  that  any  result  may  be  great,  can  and  must  go 
into  the  space  of  inches  and  hair-breadths,  yet  also  that 
it  lies  not  in  hair-lines  that  are  to  be  made  visible  with 
a  lens,  but  in  the  concentration  of  the  artist's  intent. 

Though  Mr.  Hunt  had  a  specialty,  he  was  not  a 
specialist  in  his  talent,  but  a  great  intelligence  applied 
to  art.  He  understood  the  pictorial  distances,  but  also 
the  social  perspective  as  well.  Having  listened  to  a 
paper  which  almost  deified  a  person  recently  deceased, 
he  remarked  on  the  bad  taste  of  flattering  a  man  "  who 
was  just  dead  and  might  be  behind  the  door !  "  When 
a  severe  judgment  had  been  pronounced,  he  said,  "There 
is  room  in  this  world  for  sinners  as  well  as  saints." 

declining  to  make  a  positive  engagement,  he  excused 
himself  with  the  plea,  "I  lie  so,  in  such  cases,  when  I 
say  I  will  come  !  "  There  was  in  his  frankness  an  in 
nate  lowly  reserve,  which  no  praise  or  fame  could  over 
come.  His  sympathy  was  narrowed  to  no  class,  but 
ready  for  the  humblest  and  as  wide  as  the  world.  He 
was  fond  of  just  appreciation,  and  indignant  at  captious 
and  ignorant  criticism ;  and  when  one  said,  ' '  What  a 
pity  it  is  he  could  not  have  received  alive  the  ample 
meed  of  present  approval  for  what  he  did  !  "  one  of  his 
pupils  answered  that  ' '  he  knew  it  the  minute  he  was 
dead."  Indeed,  the  applause  of  his  last  work  at  Niag 
ara  and  Albany  seemed  to  be  filling  the  cup  which  was 
to  run  over,  not  only  from  his  achievement,  but  in  his 
firm  and  happy  health.  After  that  came  the  fatal  ebb, 
in  which  day  by  day  his  strength  and  joy  ran  out.  He 
had  proposed  to  refuse  for  the  time  all  further  commis 
sions,  and  when  summer  came,  to  go  to  Europe  for 

29 


450  PORTRAITS. 

recreation  and  rest.  But  he  was  drawn  into  new  labors, 
which  his  ardor  and  good-nature  tempted  him  to  as 
sume  ;  and  erelong  the  consequences  appeared  in  a 
nervous  prostration  such  as  he  had  never  felt  before. 
Vital  virtue  had  gone  and  was  swiftly  going  oiit  of 
him.  Vacillation  of  purpose  in  such  a  toiler  was  a  sure 
symptom  of  constitutional  decline.  Unnaturally  keen 
apprehension  of  what  he  might  be  liable  to,  as  of  poi 
son  in  the  wall-paper  and  the  colored  rug,  or  of  dust 
down  the  chimney  and  through  the  cracks  of  the  floor, 
to  increase  the  difficulty  of  his  breathing,  indicated  a 
weakening  in  his  thought,  which  had  usually  been  as 
robust  as  it  was  fine.  He  gained  flesh  for  a  while,  and 
lost  power.  The  difference  of  temperature  depressed 
him  when  he  came  from  the  "  Isles  of  Shoals  "  to  ?he 
main-land,  even  for  an  hour.  His  friends  offered  to 
take  him  to  the  mountains  for  a  fortnight  to  recruit; 
and  he  quietly  asked  them,  ' '  And  then,  after  that  ?  " 
One  day,  as  a  black  cloud  with  sheets  of  driving  rain 
had  overspread  the  island  where  he  was,  he  had  dis 
appeared.  It  had  been  well  known  by  those  nearest  to 
him  that  inability  to  work  and  discouraging  failure  of 
his  wonted  vigor,  when  he  made  any  attempt,  had  been 
the  drop  most  bitter  to  his  taste.  What  takes  place 
psychologically  in  such  a  case  in  the  "article  of  death," 
who  shall  say  ?  The  flame  burns  low  in  the  lamp  of 
life,  the  wick  is  crusted,  only  a  little  blue  jet  of  fire  is 
left,  which  clings  obstinately  and  long,  when  by  the 
smallest  agitation  of  the  air  —  is  it  a  puff  of  wind  or 
the  man's  own  breath?  —  it  is  in  a  moment  quenched. 
The  increments  of  inward  disorder  are  too  fine  for  the 
medical  eye.  Of  the  sufferer's  interior  condition  in  this 


HUNT,   THE  ARTIST.  451 

case  none  but  such  as  have  felt,  like  the  present  writer, 
the  utter  nervous  misery  can  be  entitled  to  speak  ;  and 
they  will  speak  with  tenderness,  a  word  of  blame  being 
impossible  from  their  lips,  knowing  as  they  do  that  any 
providential  or  divinely  permitted  escape,  when  the 
flesh  is  a  slow  and  hopeless  conflagration  of  pain,  is 
like  rescue  from  a  burning  house  or  the  instinctive 
shrinking  from  a  cauterizing  surgical  tool.  God  takes 
the  responsibility  for  every  step  of  what  is  indeed  ab 
normal  or  insane.  Let  man  abstain  in  it  from  censure 
of  his  fellow-man.  The  lake  is  readily  ruffled  by  reason 
of  the  very  quality  that  makes  it  the  spotless  mirror  of 
the  sky.  If  we  are  made  up  of  sentiment,  how  quick  we 
are  to  resent !  The  artist-nature  is  qualified  and  in  part 
constituted  by  a  sensitiveness  that  is  extreme. 

Mr.  Hunt  would  not  be  called  a  man  of  religious 
sensibility  by  such  as  identify  piety  with  an  observ 
ance  of  stated  forms.  Neither  would  John  Milton  be 
so  characterized  in  his  absence  from  public  worship 
in  the  later  years  of  his  life.  But  as  truly  reverent 
as  that  sublime  poet  was  our  artist,  although  his  wor 
ship  arose  like  the  incense  from  ancient  altars  on  the 
open  plain.  The  blaze  was  too  pure  to  make  any 
smoke.  Yet  the  consecrated  walls  and  sweet  divisions 
of  holy  time  might  well  have  been  for  him  a  help  and  a 
guard !  But  he  was  in  every  thing  shy.  He  would 
fain  hide  especially  his  pangs,  and  show  his  best.  He 
had  a  noble  shame,  which  would  not  suffer  him  to  ob 
trude  what  was  sad  in  his  condition  on  those  about  him. 
Therefore,  as  he  appeared  to  them  in  health  better  than 
he  was,  they  with  the  whole  community  were  shocked 
at  his  so  sudden  decease.  But  his  vital  interior  had 


452 


PORTRAITS. 


already  been  consumed,  and  he  was  ready  to  crumble 
while  outwardly  he  stood  so  brave  and  fair.  Never 
surely  was  metal  more  fine  than  in  that  golden  bowl 
broken  and  silver  cord  loosed ! 

Mr.  Hunt  is  more  in  the  portraits  he  drew  of  others 
than  in  those  he  painted  of  himself,  as  Shakspeare  is 
more  in  the  plays  than  in  the  sonnets  that  bear  his 
name.  He  is  indigenous  in  most  of  the  products  of  his 
brush,  and  at  the  last  peculiarly  an  American  in  art, 
however  his  earlier  manner  was  French.  He  was  a 
lover  of  nature  and  of  human  nature,  and  while  making 
the  outline  of  Judge  Shaw  he  said  he  ' '  wanted  to  hug 
the  man."  We  feel  that  many  of  his  individual  or  ideal 
portraits  could  walk  out  of  their  frames,  pass  through 
our  streets,  and  wander  over  the  world.  The  artist  is 
in  the  generous  scope,  vivacious  familiarity,  self-obliv 
ious  disinterestedness  of  his  work,  so  real  and  ideal  at 
once  that  we  know  we  have  him  in  what  he  does,  and 
while  admiring  the  performance  cannot  help  but  love 
and  honor  the  man.  For  how  he  loved  and  respected 
the  business  he  was  at,  with  a  depth  of  devoted  interest 
that  issued  in  and  was  perpetual  work  !  His  ' '  Trum 
peter,"  that  stirred  beyond  any  live  one's  prowess  the 
nation  to  the  field,  also  blew  him  on.  The  singers,  the 
lambs,  the  kittens,  the  kids,  hens,  or  sheep,  they  were 
his  own  being  for  the  time  and  his  very  soul.  He  en 
tered  into  them  every  jot. 

Mr.  Hunt  never  fails  of  meaning  and  unity  in  his  pic 
ture  or  sketch,  and  can  fill  with  his  central  point  of  inter 
est  the  whole  space  of  his  work,  as,  in  his  "  Spring  Chick 
ens,"  the  sky  seems  to  spread  and  the  river  to  roll  for  the 
little  brood  to  which  a  child  scatters  crumbs  on  the  green 


HUNT,    THE   AKTIST.  453 

bank.  Nature  is  never  without  humanity  in  what  he  con 
ceives,  and  the  smallest  creature  wins  his  deft  hand  and 
tender  eye.  How  jealous,  therefore,  he  was  of  the  dignity 
of  his  calling !  If  there  was  aught  better  here  below 
than  to  paint,  he  knew  it  not !  If  one  had  to  be  per 
suaded  to  sit,  he  said  he  "  would  not  paint  a  cat  if  it 
had  objections,  theological,  superstitious,  or  any  other, 
to  being  taken."  He  offered  to  his  subject  his  heart, 
and  did  not  want  any  shamefacedness  or  by-play,  but 
affection  deep  and  serious  as  his  own.  Of  the  selfish 
ness  which  he  said  "shortens  life  to  a  point,"  he  had 
not  a  -jot.  We  shall  see  him  as  long  as  cloth  and 
panel  can  hold  the  light  and  shade  he  disposed  and 
the  pigments  he  used.  Those  were  his  features !  All 
that  belonged  to  his  mortality  he  spent  on  his  task. 
His  palette  was  the  rainbow  he  dipped  his  brush  into, 
till  the  nervous  touch  was  worn  out  that  had  waited  so 
long  and  faithfully  on  his  imaginative  mind.  On  his 
stints  he  lavished  himself.  His  life-blood  was  in  the 
tint  and  splendid  staining  of  those  Albany  State  House 
walls,  and  they  are  his  winsome  relics.  His  remains 
lie  outspread  in  those  magnificent  forms,  surpassing  all 
in  the  same  kind  which  this  Western  continent  has  to 
show.  There  is  his  court,  his  reception-chamber,  and 
his -tomb.  He  lies  buried  under  the  dome  he  adorned, 
while  far  away  in  his  native  village  rest  his  tired  bones. 
His  country  will  cherish  tenderly  the  recollection  of  such 
unpretending  yet  religious  consecration  of  unmatched 
powers  dedicated  even  unto  death.  For  into  his  achieve 
ment  for  our  delectation  all  that  in  this  world  was  in  him 
passed.  Figure  of  ' '  Fortune  "  at  the  helm  did  he  draw  ? 
What  fortune  did  the  draughtsman  have  ?  We  think  of 


454  PORTRAITS. 

how  many  a  fortune,  besides,  which  seemed  misfortune  in 
the  history  of  the  genius  that  glorifies  our  race,  of  blind 
Milton  and  deaf  Beethoven,  arid  with  which,  in  the 
diverse  measure  of  the  men,  what  was  sad  in  his  story 
may  be  compared !  Under  that  civil  ceiling  on  the 
banks  of  the  Hudson,  bent  and  reaching,  like  Michael 
Angelo  at  his  awful  S^ls,  did  he  give  in  superhuman 
size  the  cheerful  figure  of  "Hope"?  Into  it  went  all 
the  hope  of  his  own  throbbing,  suffering,  but  never- 
complaining  breast !  The  susceptibility  which  is  the  con 
dition  and  constitution  of  genius  makes  it  "  a  pilgrim 
and  sojourner  on  the  earth."  It  is  allowed  mercifully 
at  last  to  leave  the  carnal  lodgings  it  finds  so  poor. 
To  other  and  better  accommodations  does  it  not  go? 
Did  it  not  shiver  like  a  new-born  babe  when  it  came  ? 
The  l '  Flight  of  Night "  is  conspicuous  among  those 
mural  tablets  in  paint  from  the  hand  of  Mr.  Hunt.  But 
the  night  he  indicated  had  begun  to  settle  on  his  own 
brain.  Yet  he  sketched  truly  ;  for  him,  likewise,  it  has 
flown !  There  is  a  charcoal  sketch  by  Mr.  Hunt  of  a 
church  in  the  evening  dusk,  with  a  crescent  moon  going 
down  in  the  sky.  Underneath  are  his  initials  and  these 
lines,  expressing,  doubtless,  his  feeling,  whether  from 
another's  pencil  or  his  own,  — 

"BEYOND  A  SPIRE  THE  MOON; 
BEYOND  THE  MOON  A  STAR  ; 
BEYOND  THE  STAR,  WHAT  ? 
ETERNITY." 

When  I  condoled  with  a  noble  man  on  a  great  be 
reavement,  he  said,  "  It  is  no  affliction;  immortality 
is  the  fact  that  swallows  up  all !  "  We  know  neither  our 
friends  nor  our  mercies  till  they  are  gone !  One  said 


HUNT,   THE  AKTIST.  455 

of  Mr.  Hunt,  "  Some  persons  seem  to  think  a  great 
deal  more  of  him  since  he  was  dead."  Pictures  of  his 
that  might  have  been  bought  for  hundreds  of  dollars  a 
year  ago  bring,  under  the  hammer,  as  many  thousands 
now.  "He  can  paint  no  more,"  the  purchasers  say. 
How  long,  indeed,  has  been  the  waiting  for  full  appre 
ciation  of  the  man  and  the  work  ! 

The  artist  is  a  fellow-pupil  with  the  moralist,  going  to 
Nature  to  school.  As  she  has  an  aim  vast,  minute, 
immediate,  and  remote,  as  she  pursues  that  aim  by 
means  the  most  simple  and  fit,  and  as  in  her  impenetra 
ble  interior,  which  none  can  enter,  she  lays  her  plans, 
having  as  much  as  any  saint  a  closet  of  her  own,  so  iu 
morals  or  the  art  of  duty,  and  in  art  which  clothes  in 
beauty  the  moral  laws,  there  is  an  object,  a  method,  and 
a  sphere  in  common,  although  the  direction  and  visi 
ble  outcome  be  not  the  same.  Nevertheless,  that  is 
righteous  which  the  pencil  makes  winsome,  and  ethics 
become  beauty  incarnate  as  we  incline  to  obey  the  beau 
tiful  eternal  laws. 

Genius  is  thought,  like  the  child  of  Melchisedec,  to 
come  straight  from  heaven  without  human  descent. 
But  by  the  law  of  heredity  there  seems  to  be  an  an 
cestral  deposit  of  poetry,  law,  medicine,  and  divinity 
in  certain  brains,  as  former  skill  is  laid  up  in  the  head 
of  a  bee.  A  great  gift  of  imagination  in  any  one,  when 
traced,  proves  often  to  be  but  an  old  fire,  that  slumbered 
for  a  while  in  a  generation  or  two,  breaking  out  into 
flame  again.  But  Mr.  Hunt  inherited  directly  from  one 
parent,  at  least,  his  taste  and  practical  tendency  for 
art ;  and  so  the  new  philosophy  of  experience  and  evo 
lution  appears  to  be  vindicated  in  his  case. 


456  PORTRAITS. 

As  an  artist  makes  a  memory  sketch,  or  as  one  hunts 
about  his  house  to  find  something  which  he  has  left  or 
lost,  so  I  have  tried  to  draw  the  lines  of  my  subject  from 
my  recollections  and  reflections  as  they  came  and  com 
bined  in  such  order  as  the}7  pleased,  with  poor  resem 
blance  or  half  and  halting  imitation  of  the  method  of 
that  living  subject  himself,  who  mingled  painstaking 
method  with  inspiration  while  he  mixed  his  paints.  My 
theme  at  least  has  been  a  worthy  one.  The  love  of 
beauty  is  part  of  piety,  unless  the  beaut}7  of  holiness  be 
a  mistaken  Scripture-phrase  ;  and  what  a  perpetual  sol 
ace  is  the  beauty  of  the  world  !  There  is  in  it  sin,  sor 
row,  disappointment,  death,  so  much  that  the  old  Persian 
theology  gave  it  over  to  the  Destroyer  as  well  as  the 
Preserver  with  an  equally  divided  claim.  But  there  is 
no  deformity  in  its  frame.  "  He  hath  made  every  thing 
beautiful  in  its  time."  The  comfort  of  the  charm  of 
nature  is  second  only  to  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  he 
who  sees  and  shows  and  reproduces  this  beauty  is  an 
ordained  and  anointed  minister  as  much  as  any  who 
pronounce  the  clerical  vows.  The  spirit  is  the  same, 
although  we  must  not  confound  the  spheres.  If  some 
make  art  their  religion,  others  make  their  religion  an 
art ;  but  both  religion  and  art  are  one  in  the  worship  of 
that  Being  who  is  the  all  true  and  good  and  fair.  Never 
was  votary  in  his  own  profession  more  zealous  or  sincere 
than  Hunt.  Many  will  miss  his  speech  more  than  we 
do  the  brush  that  has  left  its  splendor  behind ;  while  the 
humor  that  smiled,  wit  that  sparkled,  pathos  that  melted, 
imagination  that  blazed  and  lit  up  ever}7  subject,  have 
their  words  preserved  only  in  the  little  safes  of  individ 
ual  recollection,  to  be  quoted  as  his  image  comes  into 


HUNT,    THE   ARTIST.  457 

many  a  private  talk.  I  remember  his  condensing  the 
worth  of  freedom  into  an  apothegm,  —  "You  cannot 
work  with  your  elbow  bound."  He  was  a  child,  declar 
ing  "  there  are  lots  of  fun  on  earth,  also  in  heaven, 
which  we  are  sure  to  have."  Some  of  us  one  evening 
shivered  at  his  description  of  the  death  of  an  acrobat  in 
France,  falling  from  his  lofty  trapeze  to  the  ground,  all 
the  spectators  rising  without  noise  in  the  solemn  hush 
to  go  out.  He  was  one  of  the  men  of  genius  of  our 
country  and  time,  whom  it  takes  so  few  of  our  fingers 
to  count,  and  whose  orb  we  should  not  let  vanish  and 
make  no  sign,  He  sought  not  high  society ;  any  com 
pany  of  his  fellow-creatures  was  good  enough  fbr  him, 
and  none,  he  declared,  from  which  he  could  not  learn. 
He  was  genial,  gentle,  generous,  outspoken,  as  well  as 
kind  ;  it  being  very  difficult  for  him  to  be  reserved.  The 
sight  of  suffering  he  could  not  bear,  but  ran  to  relieve. 
"  Take  the  sick  girl,"  he  said,  "  out  of  the  dark  side  of 
the  house,  and  put  her  into  a  sunny  room."  Of  another, 
who  was  weak,  he  said  to  the  employers,  "  You  know 
not  how  a  heavy  weight  feels  to  her."  He  would  run  to 
hush  a  baby,  or  carry  in  his  lap  a  barking,  dangerous 
dog  in  the  car.  Meeting  a  music-grinder  out  of  town, 
he  changes  hats  and  jackets  with  him,  takes  his  organ, 
goes  to  the  door  of  the  house  near  by,  plays  the  tunes, 
pulls  off  his  hat  when  the  people  come,  is  recognized, 
and  gets  six  or  seven  dollars  for  the  poor  Italian.  He 
was  not — better  had  he  been — a  church-goer,  but  went 
to  a' liturgical  service  once,  and  said  he  had  to  look  at  the 
gowns  and  bonnets  of  the  congregation,  as  he  took  in 
the  sermon  with  the  millionth  part  of  his  mind !  Almost 
everybody  loved  him.  The  last  fit  use  of  his  unoccu- 


458  PORTRAITS. 

pied  studio  at  Magnolia  was  to  receive  the  dead  body 
of  a  }roung  woman  swept  away  and  drowned  close  by, 
as  he  was  to  take  his  last  gasp  b}T  a  shallow  reservoir. 
His  personal  friends  and  the  members  of  his  class  were 
all  ardently  such,  and  would  prompt  a  better  tribute  than 
I  can  render  here. 

His  mind  was  indeed  good  ground,  and  brought  forth 
abundantly  to  the  honor  of  the  great  Landlord  who  put 
it  to  him  in  rent ;  but  the  soil  was  exhausted  how  sadly 
and  too  soon !  Alexandre  Dumas  sa}rs  Michael  Angelo 
is  the  only  man  to  whom  God  gave  four  souls,  meaning, 
I  suppose,  painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  and  poetry. 
We  can  claim  but  one  of  these  for  Mr.  Hunt,  although 
he  could  model  skilfully  in  clay,  and,  like  that  grand  mas 
ter  who  was  his  own  delight  and  pattern,  compose  in 
verse  if  he  would.  This  man,  with  such  gifts  from  the 
Great  Giver,  has  gone.  Before  his  intellect  was  dimmed 
of  one  ray  of  its  brightness,  he  has  faded  from  view ; 
and,  as  a  cold  shadow  unexpectedly  falls  upon  us  as  we 
walk  when  a  cloud  blots  the  sun  in  mid-heaven,  this 
sad  occultation  chills  a  thousand  hearts.  The  unerr 
ing  hand  has  lost  its  cunning,  the  musical  tongue  its 
matchless  aptness  to  persuade,  the  eye  is  closed  which 
naught  worth  seeing  could  escape,  the  manner  and 
gesture  of  a  grace  and  originality  peculiarly  their 
own  are  dust,  or  glorified  and  transformed.  This  Ori 
ental  in  the  West  has  had  his  Occident ;  this  Arab, 
lithe  and  supple,  with  nerves  of  lightning  and  fibre  of 
steel,  so  swift,  so  strong,  has  disappeared  among  the 
desert  sands.  In  company  he  had  kept  up  wonderfully, 
and  seemed  in  good  spirits,  though  so  weak.  When 
one,  to  whom  his  health  was  a  precious  care,  entertained 


HUNT,   THE  ARTIST.  459 

him  with  some  piquant  and  merry  tales,  he  cried  out :  "  I 
never  heard  so  many  wicked  stories  before  in  my  life, 
and  I  should  think  you  would  not  like  to  be  alone  with 
your  Maker.     The  air,"  he  added,  "is  full  of  wicked 
ness,"  and  he  took  a  tumbler,  which  he  turned  over  on 
the  table,   and  affected  to  fill  with  air,   saying,  "  If  I 
should  take  a  lucifer  match  this  would  burn  like  fire  and 
brimstone."     In  the  last  exquisite  photograph  taken  of 
him  he  looks  like  a  macerated  monk  or  pillar-saint,  his 
skin  drawn  like  parchment  over  the  hollows  of  his  cheek 
bones.     What  caused  such  an  end  ?     Not  any  particular 
trouble,  among  his  many  griefs,  but  the  misery  of  a  ner 
vous  system  hindering  sleep  and  forbidding  work, — work 
which  was  his  calling,   consolation,  home,   and  refuge 
from  every  ill.    When  that  failed  the  last  string  cracked 
in  that  marvellous  harp  some  angel  played  in  his  breast. 
It  was  death  to  him  to  have  to  stop  in  his  designs. 
When  hope  died  he  died.     When  we  cease  we  decease. 
Had  aught  been  said  against  him,  dying  was  his  only 
reply ;  and  death  gives  an  enormous  advantage  to  a  man. 
Nothing  strikes  like  a  dead  hand  or  reproves  like  for  ever 
silent  lips ;  but  with  what  comfort  we  remember  any 
effort  or  sacrifice  for  the  departed  !     We  give  life  when 
we  give  happiness,  and  we  take  it  away  when  we  di 
minish  joy.     The  real  diggers  of  graves  and  hewers  of 
monuments  are  not  the  workers  in  marble  yonder  or  the 
sextons  with  their  spades.     God  grant  us  grace  while 
we  live,  and  when  we  die,  to  heal  and  forgive  !    For  the 
lamented  man  or  those  who  in  any  relation  with  him 
mourn  his  loss,  what  room  in  our  bosom  for  any  senti 
ment  but  pity,  compassion,  sympathy,  commiseration, 
commendation  to  God  alike  of  the  surviving  here  and  of 


460 


PORTRAITS. 


those  there  who  live  beyond  us  all,  having,  in  the  beau 
tiful  untranslatable  French  word,  trespassed  on  immor 
tality  while  the  flesh  fences  us  in.  Who  can  lift  a 
horoscope  over  a  coffin?  Yet  Hope,  which  Paul  writes 
is  one  of  the  three  abiding  things,  stands  with  her 
visions  beyond  the  last  eclipse. 


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